Never Let You Go Again
by Ignoramus
Summary: The third story after Leave You Behind and Take You With Me, which should be read first. Plot: The day after Theta and Rose's wedding, a formidable enemy plunges them into the centre of an interplanetary war. Please review.
1. Chapter 1

Hello! It is here at last! The third part in the trilogy. You have no idea how long I've been waiting to post this, and it's here now, with a GIGANTIC plot. Honestly, I've written it all out and it's MASSIVE. I feel like bloody JK Rowling... but anyway.

This, by the way, came soooo close to... well, smut on their wedding night. If anyone would like to write a smutty version, please feel free!

On with the show!

* * *

It was 2 am on Barcelona, and near the coast, two figures could be seen embarking from a large winged donkey and watching it fly off again into the night. They entered a small hotel and ran up flights of stairs to the hotel bedrooms. The silhouettes charged down a long corridoor and stopped at the end of it. The smaller of them, decidedly female, fumbled for the keys. Behind her, her male companion took another hearty swig from a bottle and became so drunk that he promptly walked into the nearest wall, rebounded and fell flat on his face with a yell. 

After several minutes of fumbling, it emerged that the keys were missing. The male figure swore, pulled out a small metallic object - that looked suspiciously like a screwdriver - and aimed it at the door. There was a flash of blue light and the door was blasted open... fortunately, the burgular alarm didn't go off. The small automatic light came on then, illuminating the two people in the doorway, who were revealed to be Theta and Rose. Both of them were in a considerable state of undress - Theta's hair was sticking up out of his head in all directions, and a pair of sunglasses rested atop his head. His tie was slackened and shirt hung loose and all the buttons had mysteriously come undone, and to cap it all, he was roaring "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" at the top of his lungs. If one thing was obvious, it was the fact that he'd drunk himself silly.

He was still wearing his greatcoat, and Katie their hybrid squirrel was perched on his shoulder, swaying dangerously from side to side and humming along tunelessly to Theta's bellowing. It soon became clear she was quite tipsy as well, when she pushed Theta's sunglasses off his head and attempted to put them on herself, with little success.

Rose, still wearing her wedding dress, was watching both of them and giggling madly, being as drunk as he was. Her hair had escaped from the pinned-up mass it had been before, and now tumbled in lazy curls down her back. Theta turned to look at her in the dim light from the bedroom and stared. She looked... divine. Beautiful. Absoloutely perfect. And she was his!

Without further ado, he picked her up and carried her in through the doorway, only stopping to throw his coat off on the way and completely ignoring Katie's protests at being thrown suddenely off his shoulder into freefall. He dumped Rose unceremoniously on the bed with a grin, slamming the door behind him. Their wedding night... was gonna be done his way!

He scrambled onto the bed as the automatic light switched off, and kissed her quickly in the darkness. Rose grabbed him but he twisted out of her reach with a mischevious grin on his face. As fast as lightening, he grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at her. She looked at it in confusion.

_"Go on..." _He gestured at the pillow. _"But I'll have you know I'm the best at this in the whole universe!"_

She grinned in understanding. _"You're on!"_

Within minutes yells and thumping sounds emerged as it became clear they were in the middle of... a pillow fight.

Feathers flew in all directions and the battle went on for some time - but eventually Rose managed to reach for the bedside lamp and switch it on.

It revealed a room entirely covered in white goosefeathers, and Theta pinned down onto the double bed with Rose holding him down in a wrestling hold, a triumphant smile on her face.

Blond hair tumbled down to catch Theta on the face and he blew it away, being unable to move his hands. He wriggled and glared at Rose from where she held him helplessly captive.

She grinned. _"Best in the universe, eh?"_

_"Alright, alright! Gerrof!" _he yelled.

_"Make me!"_

Theta stared. Was that a serious suggestion?

Oh, this was gonna be so much fun!

Rose freed his arms in afterthought, and Theta leaned forward and switched off the light. And after that, it was never switched on again and the bedroom remained in darkness, although not altogether silent.

Let it suffice to say that they didn't fall asleep straight away...

Morning dawned, and as the first rays of sunshine burst through the window, Rose Tyler woke up in a large double bed and lay there dreamily for a moment, trying to remember where she was. Suddenly, understanding rushed in on EXACTLY what had happened to her in the last 24 hours and she shot bolt upright in bed with a yell.

"OH MY GOD! I GOT MARRIED!"

She heard a snigger from beside her and turned to face Theta, who had been watching her sleep and now looked highly amused.

_"You did, yes..."_

_"I... got married! To you! Oh my God!"_

Theta put his head in his hands. _"Women... and I've only been married to you for one night… I have hysteria to look forward to for the rest of my life…"_

He put both his hands on her shoulders as Rose began to hyperventilate, behaving uncharacteristically like Jackie under the circumstances.

_"Deep breaths... in and out, that's right..." _

And he lowered her gently until she was lying on the bed again. He flopped back down next to her and she looked at him suddenly with a gleam in her eye, remembering the events of the night before. Well, it wasn't everyday that you saw the Doctor after he'd had enough vodka to make any human pass out…

_"Last night was fantastic! I didn't know you could bend your…"_

"_Rose Tyler – don't you even THINK about going there…"_

He cringed at the memory. How exactly had he managed to drink himself silly, on their wedding night? And, truth be told, he didn't know he could bend that particular body part either...

How exactly had he lived 900 years without having sex? Of course, there was that time when he was held captive and almost mated with a chameleon, and there was that blonde junior nurse in the hospital back on Gallifrey - he would have gone all the way with her until he realised she had tentacles - but other than that... nothing.

_"I mean, I didn't expect a whole lot of experience in the bed department, but none at all..."_

Aware that Rose was smirking at him, he turned up his nose and glared at her... until he picked up on something hidden deep inside her mind and smiled in triumph.

_"Hah! I knew it!"_

_"Argh! Stay out of my head, you!"_

He grinned knowingly at her. _"Looks like I'm not the only one who was a virgin..."_

Rose fumed and he laughed at her.

_"Yeah well, I'm nineteen, you're nine hundred!"_

_"Hey, you weren't complaining!"_

It was true. Theta was... well, bloody fantastic in the bad department, and when Rose admitted this he beamed his dazzling smile, the one he saved just for her, and used it to great effect.

_"Theta?"_

_"Mmm?"_ Playing idly with her hair.

_"Now that we're married... you're not gonna… buy a house… are you?"_

_"HOUSE?"_ Theta squeaked in alarm and sat bolt upright, staring at her.

He was now rapidly turning pale with shock and Rose looked at him rather worriedly.

"_House… MORTGAGE!" _He began to sway from side to side in shock.

"_Theta!_"

She grabbed him and kissed him hard, feeling the colour return to his face as he began to kiss her back. As the kiss grew more passionate yellow mist began to collect around the two of them, sparks darted in between them, and without warning there was a minor explosion of yellow light. Theta and Rose were both thrown to opposite sides of the room and slumped painfully against the wall.

Theta scrambled up, crossed the room and helped Rose to her feet, who promptly pushed him back down on the bed again.

He stared at her. _"Do you want to… live in a house?_"

He propped himself up on his elbows and frowned, looking like the idea hadn't even occurred to him.

Rose looked at him. "_No! And I was hoping you didn't either!"_

He flopped back on the bed in relief.

_"Thank Rasillion!" _He gazed at her fondly.

_"You have NO idea how lucky I am to have you... you understand me so well..."_

_"I do, don't I?" _Rose raised two fingertips up to touch his face, smiling tenderly at him.

And he beamed back at her. And within seconds they were hurtling towards a _moment_ again...

When an enormous explosion rocked the floor. Plaster rained down from the ceiling and screaming and shouting could be heard in the coridoor outside their bedroom. They could hear firearms and lasers down below... it sounded utterly terrifying. _Something _had invaded the hotel.

Theta took in the entire situation within seconds and looked at Rose very firmly. _"Don't you DARE painc!"_

He took her hand and pulled her up from the bed. Standing, he proceeded to dress as fast as possible, and indicated for her to do the same. He buttoned up his blazer, turned Rose around on impulse and brushed her hair for her, combing gently through the tangles and pinning up the blond waves with suprising skill. Rose eyed her reflection in the long mirror and smiled at him.

Theta shrugged on his greatcoat, grabbed her by the shoulders suddenely and stared at her for one long moment. Rose understood perfectly and stared back at him, each one memorising the other. After all, you never knew what could be creating chaos downstairs... there was every chance that something could go horribly wrong...

Then he released her unexpectedly, unlocked the door and charged down the corridoor, Rose flying after him.

The hotel lobby was in complete chaos - every single person appeared to have exited their rooms. There were huge crowds in the corridoor, people milling around everywhere, panicking. Explosions regularly shook the floor, laser beams shot out of the adjoining reception room, and burnt holes in the floor. Fireballs shot around everywhere, and the huge crowds stampeded this way and that, often crushing the smaller people, who couldn't stay upright and were trodden on by masses of running feet. Many people were brandishing chairlegs, stools, in some cases long sharp kitchen knives. A few burly men took out pistols and pointed them at anything that was moving, increasing the commotion.

Theta ran into the lobby with Rose and stared at everything in shock. He grabbed Rose's hand and showed her the double doors of the reception room.

_"Whatever's causing this is behind those double doors. Rose, we're going in."_

He took one look at the smile on her face and knew she was feeling exactly the same adrenalin rush he was. And he loved her so much for that.

She took one look at the way his eyes were shining and knew he was feeling exactly the same adrenalin rush she was. And she loved him so much for that.

And they looked at each other and ran through the double doors together and came out on the other side, in the reception room. Instantly they were both thrown into shock by what they saw.

Daleks. Four of them. Big and monstrous and as soon as she saw them Rose would have been scared stiff but Theta whispered,

_"Show no fear."_

And she grinned at this and wiggled her fingers in their hands and held on to him all the harder.

The hotel staff had guns out and were firing at the Daleks, to no avail. Blue lasers shot from two of the Daleks, killing everyone in their path. Meanwhile, the other two Daleks attempted to wreak as much havoc as possible. Having done as much damage as possible to the reception room, they were about to proceed to the lobby, where countless people would have died.

It was fortunate then, that that was when Theta and Rose entered the room.

The power they commanded was apparant from the moment they ran in, and all the Daleks stopped what they were doing immediately to face them.

They said it as one, "We are the Cult of Skaro."

If the Doctor knew this name, he didn't look fazed in the least. He squeezed Rose's hand gently.

"Hello! I'm the Doctor, and this is my wife, Rose Tyler."

* * *

Now please please please review and tell me how I'm getting on...

As was kindly suggested by pinktardis, the chainsaw needs a name. He is now officially Charlie the Chainsaw, short for Charles Montgomery Percival Chainsaw(MY chainsaw came from the chainsaw aristocracy)

Ahem. Yeah. Anyway, Charlie says hi and please please review!


	2. Chapter 2

Hello! Second chapter up! Not too much to say, except that I re-read both of the other stories in this series and was appalled by how bad they were! I don't understand how anyone managed to get what on earth I was writing about... ah well. So from here on I've decided on a 1500 word limit for my chapters because they NEED to be shorter.

Oh and cremela - I felt obliged to reply to your review here 'cause you didn't leave an e-mail address and well, it was just hilarious. Wendy the Whipping-Wrench:D Thank you for your review.

All your reviews have astounded and delighted me - thank you so much!

Hope you like...

* * *

His words echoed around the reception room. The Daleks all flinched at the mention of Rose's name and Rose stared back at them, daring them to fire. The Daleks made no move to attack her and just stood there for now, silenced by the amazing respect this nineteen year-old commanded. 

Meanwhile, Theta was on fire. He could have jumped for joy as he said those words. That felt good! The Doctor on his own was all very well, but now he was _married_. To Rose Tyler! Next to him, the most powerful being in the universe. If the Daleks were scared before... well, now was the time to be terrified.

One of the Daleks broke the silence. "I am Dalek Sek." He raised his long sucker in the air by way of identification. Theta eyed him with distaste.

Dalek Sek introduced everyone else. "Dalek Jast. Dalek Thay. Dalek Kahn."

"And you're the Cult of Skaro, eh?" Theta walked around the group of Daleks and stared at them, immensly curious. He put his glasses on and examined them minutely before returning the spectacles to his pocket and staring at them anew from a distance.

_"OK... who or what is the Cult of Skaro?" _Theta gave her a look that translated as "just play along".

Dalek Sek spoke again. "Who we are is of no consequence. We know who YOU are. You are the Doctor. You are INFERIOR and will be EXTERMINATED."

Suddenely, all of the Cult of Skaro aimed their huge guns at them and began to fire. Theta reacted like lightening and pulled Rose with him, running out of the hotel at top speed.

Rose preotested. _"We can't just run away! They're going to kill everyone!"_

_"You got any better ideas?" _Theta looked at her. _"And anyway... I need you safe... so you can help me sort out this disaster..."_

_"Forget saving everyone, we have to get out of here... before we get fried."_

_"We NEED the Tardis! Where on earth is she?"_

_"No idea..."_

They ran helter skelter away from the Cult of Skaro, who were currently pursuing as fast as was possible. Outside the hotel, the confusion had spread rapidly. They stopped for a second to stare at the hotel, the left wing of which had now been set on fire and was burning ferociously. And as they stared, an angry mob came charging towards them carrying burning torches, pickaxes and iron railings. And... they didn't look too happy to see them.

"IT'S THEM! THEY DID THIS!" shouted a voice from the centre of the mob, who was clearly under the impression that they were the source of all the chaos.

The Cult of Skaro came and stood in front of the people of Barcelona, who instantly fell silent. It was perfectly obvious they hadn't seen Daleks before.

"Those two are traitors to your land and your species." Dalek Sek informed the crowd.

"Let us exterminate them together!" And the crowd roared their approval.

With a roar, everyone charged at them and it became a stampede. Theta yelled in exasperation, grabbed Rose and ran off again, now pursued by the best part of 200 people screaming behind them, led by four hysterical Daleks who were firing lasers at them left, right and centre.

_"God, the universe is so appreciative... They might be nice to us for ONCE. I mean, has anyone ever thanked us for saving them? Oh no, they have to run us out of the country with pickaxes!"_

So resumed Theta's tirade as they ran on to the coast, down side-streets and alleys with the mob and the Cult of Skaro all on their trail, and finally... Theta remembered that he'd re-parked the Tardis in the hotel carpark.

_"Oh you IDIOT!"_

And he apologized to Rose profusely, wheeled around and ran with her all the way back to the hotel, where they tore through the gates. Because they'd doubled back on themselves, the Daleks and angry mob were catching up. They were now so close Rose could feel the heat of the torches and the Dalek's cries of "EXTERMINATE!" sounded almost in her ear.

Theta wrenched open the door, threw Rose in and hurled himself after her, slamming the door shut behind him.

The Tardis was in darkness - Rose stood up, switched on the lights and helped Theta to his feet. He gave her a shaky smile which she then returned and they looked around them before running to the console room.

_"TARDIS!" _he roared.

_"I'm here." _was the reply, as calm and placcid as ever.

_"You didn't have to shout, you know..." _From the sounds of things, the Tardis wasn't feeling too co-operative.

_"Tell me exactly what the Cult of Skaro is doing here!"_

_"Theta!" _reproved the Tardis. _"Ask nicely now..."_

Theta ground his teeth in frustration, and Rose decided to take the initiative.

_"Tardis... could you please tell us what is going on here?"_

_"Alright." _came the answer. _"Sit down... this could take a while."_

Theta ran out of the room briefly and returned with two huge squashy beanbags in a shocking shade of pink. Offering one to Rose, he sat down and closed his eyes. Deciding not to object to the colour of the beanbags, Rose slumped down next to him.

_"Close your eyes. The Tardis is probably going to show us visuals from her memory archive."_

_"Her memory archive?"  
_

_"Of course! Tardises were grown, not built. They feel like we do."_

And when Rose closed her eyes, the Tardis began her explanation.

_"The Cult of Skaro go way back. Way, way back. In fact, I don't know how they were created."_

_"But I thought you knew everything!"_

_"No-one knows everything, Theta. Now stop interrupting!"_

Moving images formed behind their closed eyes. Pictures of a land long forgotten - the ancestral home of the Daleks.

_"So, as I was saying, the Cult of Skaro began countless centuries ago. Those four Daleks were created as a force for good to try and counterbalance the evil within the Dalek species. "Skaro" means "truth" in the Oldest Tongue, and those Daleks were designed to be the "true" spirit of the Daleks, and prevent the evil behaviour of the others from getting too out of hand. They began their existance in hiding, away from the others who would torture them because they were different. They helped victims of the Dalek's torture to get back to a better life. Eventually, inevitably, they were found out by the Dalek Emperor, who survived the Game Station by transforming his soul. He found the Cult of Skaro and tortured them into evil. There is no way back for them - they developed a reputation over the years for being the elite of evil."_

The images of the torturing of the Cult of Skaro were displayed to them, horrific and brutal. Rose's hand unconsciously crept into Theta's and held on tight.

_"The Cult were sent by the Emperor to meet the Cybermen on Earth in a parallel universe, and declare war on them. The Emperor sent them because he didn't want to risk himself again. They had made a machine for the Emperor after they were tortured called the Genesis Ark and they used this Ark to win over the Cybermen. Before it could do any real damage, however, a man called the Doctor send them all zooming into the void. The Cult of Skaro were created differently from all the other Daleks, so instead of falling into the Void they fell THROUGH it. They travelled through a loophole in the Void and obviously, they came out on Barcelona, in this universe."_

The Tardis ended her narrative and Theta and Rose both opened their eyes and sat deep in thought.

_"The Cult of Skaro were... tortured? But that's... that's horrible!" _finished Theta with an effort.

_"Can't we do anything about it?"  
_

_"There's nothing we can do - their evil is permanent now. What we have to do is find some way to stop them..."_

_"That won't be easy," _interrupted the Tardis. _"Once Dalek-skin passes through a loophole in the Void, it becomes virtually indestructible. That's a property that nothing else in the universe has - it was designed to be on Daleks as a final precaution, should their race fall into the Void and somehow find a way out again. So almost by accident, the Cult of Skaro are now indestructible."_

_"And there was me thinking life couldn't get any worse..." _Theta put his head in his hands.

_"So, where shall we go? We can't stay here!"_

_"Come on Rose - help me with the co-ordinates. We've gotta go back to Earth - they need to know that there's a troupe of Daleks on Barcelona..."_

Just as they were about to walk out of the control room, the Tardis remembered something else.

_"Rose - Theta - wait. The archives only just reached me. Before the Cult of Skaro were caught by the Dalek Emperor, they heard about the Genesis Ark and wanted to do something to stop it. Because they couldn't sabotage the project, they needed to make one of their own to counteract it. So they created the Eye of Skaro, which still survives today, undiscovered on the parallel universe. The Eye was a project designed with one specific purpose."_

The Tardis paused briefly, on the verge of telling them something vitally important.

_"The Eye was created to bring back Gallifrey."_

And Theta fell to the ground with a thud in a dead faint.

* * *

Charlie is doing very well, thank you. He's delighted you asked. Now please please review! You'll make me so much happier about this story... :D 


	3. Chapter 3

Hello! My attempt to write less in my stories has unfortunately failed... so I have found a solution. Have shorter chapters! So here is a double update for you :D I would have thanked reviewers but I'm so tired... please forgive me. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Rose had had to pick him up, hold him and stroke his hair for five whole minutes before he stopped gibbering. Eventually, he calmed down and just stared at her in shock. 

_"I... Gallifrey..." _He picked himself up from her arms and began pacing the room, deep in thought.

_"Now we have to sort THAT out..."_

_"Don't you want Gallifrey back?"_

He looked back at Rose, took her face in his hands and looked her in the eye. _"Rose... there is NOTHING I want more than to bring it back. I killed my own people, Rose. I know I did. Genocide - it's my greatest irony. Here I am, saving the universe... and I killed my own people."_

He was on the verge of tears. Rose kissed him.

_"C'mon - we're going back to Earth. You need a good strong cup of tea..."_

_"Oh, just what I need... your mother." _Theta grimaced.

_"Right, let's phone her and let her know we're coming..."_

_"And then I'll teach you how to fly the Tardis!"_

_"What, like I don't know already?"_

Arguing cheerfully, they headed back to the control room and began the flight home.

Some time later, they landed on the Tyler Estate - rather shakily due to Rose's piloting skills - and were both thrown to the floor, where they slid down into a heap into the corner. Disentangling himself from Rose, Theta winced at the bruises and stretched before helping his wife to her feet and pulling her out of the Tardis.

They walked to the door of Jackie's flat hand in hand, and Rose rang the bell.

They heard footsteps from inside, and Jackie opened the door.

"Rose! Doctor! Get in, quick, before anyone sees!"

She bundled both of them inside the flat and enveloped them in a bear hug once inside, much to Theta's annoyance.

"I've only just managed to convince all the wedding guests to get packing - hopefully everyone's gonna leave me in peace at last. The world's been in turmoil since you left yesterday - everyone's being trying to find you. Ever since everyone found out about aliens the government's been on the hunt for someone to protect us from them. So ever since you guys came along and saved us from the Genesis, they've been trying to track you down and dissect you! The entire MI5 would give their right hands to dissect you two, not to mention Torchwood..."

"Dissect?" Rose stuttered.

Theta laughed. "They'll be wanting to keep us alive once they hear what we've got to tell them!"

Theta and Rose flopped down on Jackie's couch and told her all about the Cult of Skaro. By the end of it Jackie's face was deathly pale.

"Oh my God. What the hell are we going to do?"

Theta ruffled his hair wearily. "I... dunno."

"Well, you're the Doctor. Think! Do something!"

Theta would have responded rather testily, but at that moment Jackie suddenely spotted the ring on Rose's finger and was immediately distracted.

"Rose! You got married!"

"Yeah, we did. On Barcelona, after we left Earth." They both beamed at the memory.

"Oh, come here. My little Rosie's all grown up..." Jackie proceeded to hug Rose afresh and cry about how time flies, and how it seemed like only yesterday that her little darling was sitting on the coffee table with her nappy on her head, etc. for a considerable length of time. At last, she relinquished Rose, who was by now looking fed up and quite severly squashed, and looked her up and down.

She suddenely announced, "By the way, when I heard you two were coming I got Harold to run down to the corner shop - and he restocked an entire kitchen cupboard with chocolate digestives... and marmalade!"

Theta was out of the room before she even finished her sentence.

Satisfied that he wouldn't be bothering them, Jackie turned to Rose.

"So how are you finding it?"

"Finding what?" Rose was puzzled.

"Being married to... him."

"MUM! You promised not to pester me about it..."

"Well... it's not a complete disaster. He's good looking, I'll give you that. An' he's tall, an' handsome. But - he's alien. He's got two hearts!"

"Mum... I'm not human either any more. You know that. And being married to him, I... I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Alright... if you're happy..."Jackie threw up her hands, then decided to ask something else.

"Rose, dear" she began in a whisper. "Is there anything else he's got two of?"

* * *

You do understand the plot, right? I mean, it can get pretty confusing... really hope it's clear, otherwise I've been typing a load of rubbish for ages... 

Update on Charlie, my chainsaw: He's delighted that so many people asked about him! And he wishes to extend his most sincere and deepest thanks (as deep as it gets - he doesn't have complex thought processes) to the lovely reviewers on Rest assured in that you are all his friends as no-one has given me cause to show them Charlie's bad side yet :D


	4. Chapter 4

The second of two, everyone... hope you enjoy!

* * *

Theta had poked his head into all of the kitchen cupboards, but had found no chocolate biscuits until he came to the smallest one of all, so high up he'd had to stand on three chairs and the coffee table perched precariously one on top of the other to reach it. There, he'd finally found what he was looking for - chocolate biscuits and several jars of marmalade, crammed into a breadbin right at the back. In raptures, he'd accidentally stuck his head into the breadbin too, but now was having slight trouble getting it out again, the bread bin being miniscule and almost the same size as his head anyway. 

At that moment, Rose stormed down the coridoor in a furious rage, closely followed by Jackie.

"MY SEX LIFE IS FINE! JUST BECAUSE HE'S AN ALIEN DOESN'T MEAN HE'S GOT... TWO! HE'S GOT ONE! AND NO IT'S NOT GIANT-SIZED OR PURPLE!"

At these words Theta's head jerked up involuntarily in shock, and the bread bin that now encased his head hit the cupboard suprisingly hard. He slipped then, losing his balance on the pile of chairs and the coffee table. His foot kicked one of the chairs in his struggle to regain his balance and the whole set of furniture fell to the ground with an almighty crash. Theta, now dangling in mid air, hung on to the cupboard for dear life - the hinges soon gave way under the pressure, the cupboard detracted from the wall in a shower of plaster and Theta was sent soaring down to earth, where he landed painfully on the pile of broken furniture, with bits of broken cupboard still surrounding his head. At that moment, everything went black as Theta slipped away from the pain into blissful unconsciousness and knew no more.

"AND HE DOESN'T HAVE TENTACLES DOWN THERE EITHER... Oh my God what was that?"

Rose and Jackie hurtled into the kitchen and their mouths dropped open simultaneously.

"Theta!"

"HE'S GONNA FEEL THE END OF MY FRYING PAN FOR THIS..."

"Mum! Don't shout!" Rose bent down next to Theta, who was lying prone on the floor, unmoving.

"Can you hear me? Are you alright?"

"HE WON'T BE WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON HIM!"

By this time Rose had had enough and she shooed Jackie out of the kitchen, despite her protests. When she was satisfied that Jackie was not going to burst through the door screaming, she turned back to her husband on the floor.

She bent down again and gave Theta a good long hard look before speaking.

_"You can open your eyes now, my Mum's left the room..."_

_"Really?"_

_"Really."_

So Theta cautiously opened his eyes to find Rose smiling down at him in amusement. To his relief, she didn't look angry at all. So he smiled back at her delightedly. She wiped marmalade from his cheek with her thumb, then licked it off as an afterthought. Theta waggled his eyebrows suggestively at her and she burst out laughing at what he was implying.

_"Rose... why on Earth would I have tentacles down there?"_

Rose blushed. _"Yeah, well..."_

_"When you know EXACTLY what I've got down there... that makes tentacles seem rather boring, doesn't it?"_

Rose turned even redder than before.

_"And as for our sex life..."_

Rose cut in. _"Well, you were the one keeping us up all night... total dynamo, honestly..."_

It was his turn to blush while Rose smirked. Theta tried to get up and fell back suddenely with a yell of pain.

_"Okay, what's broken?"_

Theta tested out all of his limbs in turn and concluded that nothing was broken, but he had so many bruises he probably wouldn't feel it if Jackie did hit him with a frying pan. He informed Rose as much and she stroked his hair with a grin.

At that moment Katie suddenely scampered out of Theta's coat pocket, miraculously unhurt, and scampered on top of his head where she found an almost whole chocolate digestive and started munching on it, leaving little squirrel-sized bite marks.

Rose picked up Katie and her biscuit, grabbed Theta's hand and pulled him to his feet, where he swayed for a moment before leaning on her and allowing her to steer him out of the kitchen, grimacing in pain.

Jackie was waiting there for them, hands on her hips and fuming. She very much resembled an Iceni Queen - indeed she was breathing so heavily through her mouth that her hair billowed out behind her. She was panting like she'd just run a chariot race... and at the sight of her Theta whimpered in fear and backed into a corner.

_"Don't be silly! It's only my Mum..."_

Theta approached her gingerly, watching for any sign that she was going to raise the baseball bat.

"Jackie, I... am so, so sorry for what I did to your beautiful kitchen and-please-don't-hit-me!" He finished in a panic as Jackie raised her arm... then lowered it and dropped the baseball bat.

"Harold should be back from his shift in a few minutes... now until then you two are going to stay in this room and NOT CAUSE ANY TROUBLE. And if I see so much as a HINT of disaster... well Doctor, we really will see whether you have tentacles or not..."

She mimed bringing a baseball bat down hard on a particularly sensitive area of the male anatomy, and Theta winced.

"Yes, Ma'am!" He gave her a mock salute.

Jackie turned a suspicious eye on him before leaving the room and going upstairs to do some ironing.

_"Now maybe we can get back to that little problem... the fact that there are four super-Daleks running loose in this universe!"_

_"What about this Eye?"_

_"The Eye of Skaro? How's that going to help?"_

_"I dunno... but we'd have the Time Lords back, that's gotta be something..."_

Theta shook his head. _"They'd come back in the middle of the Time War, because that's when they were all... killed. And that'd bring the Daleks back to, because they're who the Time Lords were fighting on Gallifrey. The whole planet would return."_

He paced the room. _"If the Time War repeated itself the Time Lords would almost certainly lose again... and that really would be a disaster."_

Suddenely, he stopped halfway across the room. _"Oh, hold on a minute. Hold on. That's... that's PERFECT!"_

He looked at Rose with a delighted beam on his face and his telepathy suddenely got faster. _"That's it! It's all inter-connected! The Daleks are indestructible now, right? Well, only Time Lords have the power to use technology to defeat the Cult of Skaro. But... what if the Time Lords don't die in the Time War? What if they WIN? What if they have someone to help them..."_

It began to dawn on Rose. _"Planet Earth..."_

_"Is on our side! They will be... they have to be. Because if they help us, with the Time Lords we can beat every single Dalek, AND use their technology to put the Cult of Skaro back into the history books..."_

The enormity of what he was saying dawned on him.

Rose stared at him. _"We need to speak to the Prime Minister - now!"_

The doorbell rang and Jackie clumped down the stairs to answer it. Harold was there, back from his shift and covered in dust. He looked pretty worn out.

But he had hardly got past the front door when Rose barrelled into him.

"Harold - there are Daleks loose on Barcelona. We need to go to Central London NOW!"

Harold hardly blinked - he'd known the Doctor for long enough to know not to ask.

"Come on... we'll take my truck."

"Oh NO - not the truck!" began Jackie, but she was bundled towards the waiting vehicle by three pairs of very firm arms before she even finished her sentence. They were all strapped in and without waiting for anyone to close their doors, Harold reversed, narrowly avoiding a tree after much screaming from Jackie in the back, and then zoomed down the road, tyres squealing, towards Central London, the government and the future of the universe.

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Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please review! 


	5. Chapter 5

OK... I know this is really quick posting, but I couldn't help myself! The chapter wrote itself...

And as promised... I'm going to thank everyone who's reviewed so far: WhisperLuna, saiyamar, daffodilTARDIS, clairlune, reddwarfaddict, montypython203, RagamuffinSundrop, one of the riddles, Light bulb in a cookie jar, blackhairdye, biggreenflyingbox, HunterGiomanach, cremela, ScoutGirl, and agapi16. Thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am unworthy of your praise. (But don't stop giving it to me, please!) Reviews make me feel alive! Which in my boring life is hard to do.

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With Harold driving and Rose in the front seat attempting to give directions, Theta was stuck in the back with Jackie, who had edged into the far corner of the truck and was staring at him muttering something about tentacles.

That, however, was the least of his worries - Harold was swerving the truck in a crazy zig-zag to either side of the road. So far, he had narrowly avoided three trees and a post box had been rapidly demolished as Harold drove the truck straight into it. Everyone who happened to be on the pavement ran wildly for safety the minute the truck appeared.

As they approached the motorway, Harold decided to ignore the speed limit and stepped on the accelerator. The speed dial went through the roof as the truck raced squealing down the M5 at over 100 miles an hour. By this point Jackie's head was out of the window, swearing and on the verge of throwing up quite explosively.

_"Rose... we have to get the government to pass an Act of Parliament banning Harold from driving this truck..."_

Just when they came to the outskirts of Westminister, the burgular alarm was mysteriously tripped and gave off a piercing shriek that rebounded down the road.

Jackie jerked her head back into the truck to explain, looking very pale. "It must be the re-wiring. Harold rewired the truck 'imself, just yesterday. 'E wanted to make sure it was working OK." Her face looked very pale.

"But he's got it completely wrong!" Rose yelled.

Harold looked at her. Rose demanded, "Did you rewire the brakes?"

He replied in the affirmative. "Do they work?"

Harold tested them. The look on his face was enough.

Jackie screamed then. Quite loudly. Only no-one could hear her over the sound of the burgular alarm.

And absoloutley everyone came out of their houses to stare at this truck speeding along shrieking madly, with a frantic woman yelling her lungs off out of the back window.

_"Dear God... what have I done to deserve this?" _Theta clamped his hands over his ears to block out the sound of a hysterical Jackie, who was threatening to shake him senseless for absoloutely no reason.

_"I mean, couldn't the burgular alarm have been rigged to play something more tuneful? Opera, for instance. I like a bit of Mozart myself. Or "God Save the Queen"... but oh no, you humans, it's gotta be an ear-piercing NOISE."_

Somehow, Rose was managing to direct Harold over all the racket, using the A to Z on her lap that was upside down. They were zooming down the streets of Westminister now - and Rose spotted the sign in the distance.

"Downing Street!" she yelled, and about time too, for the spectacle they were causing had at long last attracted the attention of the police, a vanful of which were speeding along behind them giving chase. One of the police officers had stupidly decided to follow guns blazing, at top speed, wailing sirens and flashing all their lights. Well, nothing could have made things more ovbious - far from avoiding a scene they had now drawn the attention of a rather large crowd, including a party of school children who were all watching the truck, mouths open. And the deafening police siren only added to the NOISE that was pouring out of the truck and the police car. People began running up and down the pavement and into the road in total panic. Uniformed officers and guards swarmed the road, only to end up running away from the moving truck. It was mind-blowing.

As they zoomed nearer and nearer to Downing Street, it became all too clear that there was no way they were going to be able to stop. They were going at over 100 miles per hour - that could only mean certain death.

Theta made a decision, and announced it to everyone in the truck. "Right! If there's any chance that we're gonna get out of here alive, I'd better do something. Harold, shift. Now!"

And he got Harold to scramble into the back of the truck, and clambered into the front seat next to a rather scared Rose. He gave her a wink and an excited grin, his eyes shining.

Rose was so pleased to see him there that she kissed him.

He returned the kiss, pulled back suddenely and stared at her, sensing her fear. _"Hey! Rose, it's gonna be alright. Really." _He held on to her and wiggled his fingers in their hands and she smiled, despite the situation.

He turned back to the wheel just in time to avoid a large automobile heading straight towards them. They missed it by inches and the angry driver stuck his head out of the car and swore at them. Theta resisted the urge to retaliate.

_"Okay, Rose, where's number 10?"_

Rose indicated a residence with guards and a black door halfway up the street and Theta nodded.

_"We're about to pay the Prime Minister a visit she won't forget!"_

And seeing where he was heading the car, Rose saw the genius of Theta's idea. Because the building opposite 10 Downing Street - a huge office block - was having a routine water mains check. Because the workmen were away, there was a huge plastic pedestrian ramp giving people access to the pavement - it sloped up, then down in a steep pyramid shape, covering the space in the road where the tarmac had been removed to get at the main road water pipes. And only a genius could figure out how to use a pedestrian ramp to save the lives of five people.

Theta drove the truck straight at the ramp as fast as was possible. The tyres squealed under the strain, but suddenely they had zoomed up the ramp. But instead of coming down the ramp again, Theta stood on the accelerator at the higest point of the ramp, aimed the steering wheel upwards and suddenely... they were flying.

Harold's truck was zooming through the air with the momentum the ramp had given it, just like a skateboard. In mid-air, Theta suddenely turned the steering wheel as fast as possible to the right. He turned to Harold and Jackie in the back, the latter of whom was beyond hysterics and just sat there in shock.

"I need everyone to lean to the right!" So Harold scooted over to the right hand side of the back seat, Jackie with him, and they both began pushing against the right truck door.

And against all the odds, Theta managed to pull it off - the truck turned a full 90 degrees in mid air, and now zoomed straight for 10 Downing Street. Theta yelled, "Hold on tight everyone!" and concentrated on his driving. Somehow, he managed to position the truck directly at a large window on the first floor. He then let go of the steering wheel and threw his arms around Rose instinctively as the truck flew straight for the huge glass window.

The Prime Minister was sitting around a small conference table with senior members of the Cabinet, when she heard a roaring sound in the distance, accompanied by a shrill alarm. Suddenely, a shape emerged on the horizon, visible from the window. It was rapidly advancing towards them and she moved to the window with her colleagues to get a closer look.

It was a truck. A white workman's truck and it was making the most horrendous NOISE she'd ever heard. It was flying through the air, straight for the window! Everyone suddenely began to panic and moved as far away from the window as possible while still being able to see what was going on.

The truck hit the wndow in a shattering of glass as sparks flew everywhere. As they burst through the window, there was an almighty explosion and something caught fire.

They came out and the truck landed heavily on the rich expanse of carpeted floor, moving all the way down the long conference room before lying still without moving. It appeared that the crash through the window had thankfully disabled the engines. Theta jumped out of the truck, ran to the back doors and got Harold and Jackie out. Rose was at his side in seconds and they backed away from the burning truck, surverying the damage done to the conference room.

_"Are you alright?" _Rose ran her hands over him, checking for bruises.

Theta squirmed. _"I'll live... what about you?" _Rose affirmed she was OK, then turned to Jackie and Harold, who both appeared shaken but overall unharmed.

_"Didn't I say we'd be alright?" _Rose looked at him, eyes shining, and he stroked her hair and just grinned at her for a minute.

The room was entirely covered in glass and dust. Looking up, Theta observed that the ceiling caved in and was spraying the room with plaster. Dimly, Rose noticed that the burgular alarm had stopped and now the only sound was the crackling of flames and sparks that came from the car.

And as well as that, the entire senior Cabinet was staring at them in shock.

The Prime Minister was the first to react, grabbing a fire extinguisher from a cupboard and dousing the burning truck vigorously with icy water before the fire alarm could go off in the building. Everyone watched her in silence as the flame was gradually extinguished. When she had finished, she threw the fire extinguisher to the other side of the room in a most unlady-like way before standing with her hands on her hips and looking at them expectantly.

"Er... Prime Minister..." Rose began. "I can explain..."

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There you are... please review! Charlie is doing very well, by the way... although he is a little nervous at the amount of female chainsaws and wrenches that seem to have popped up from nowhere! He wishes to tell all the ladies however, that you're all beautiful, but regretfully, there just isn't enough Charlie to go round... Alas, my chainsaw hasn't found true love yet.


	6. Chapter 6

Hello! I am SO sorry. I have neglected you! Well not really, my internet connection has neglected me actually, but you know how it is... I'm also sorry I've largely not read/reviewed anyone's stories - the first thing I did when the internet came back was to post this - but I will go and read your stories now. Promise! Oh - and one more thing, bit of a boring chapter I think... it's a connecting chapter, had to happen, really sorry about it. Hopefully it's not too boring.

Enjoy...

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The Prime Minister was really rather good about it all. Before Rose could say another word, she shooed the senior Cabinet out of the conference room, and locked the door behind them. She then looked out of the now broken window to find a stampede going on in the street, with the press trying their utmost to get into 10 Downing Street, and the police and guards struggling to hold them back. A considerable crowd had gathered outside the building, and was making a great deal of noise. 

They could all hear the voices outside, "This is the BBC 6 O'Clock News reporting from outside Downing Street, which was entered only minutes ago by a builder's truck, which was reported to have blasted through a first floor window at over 100 miles an hour..."

The Prime Minister turned to face them. "Madame... as Harriet Jones, Prime Minister, I demand to know exactly what is going on, right now!"

"Crikey... it's the Prime Minister!" muttered Jackie, and fainted, only to be caught by a startled Harold who gave Theta, Rose and the Prime Minister an apologetic glance and carried Jackie out of the room.

Now that they were undisturbed, Theta and Rose proceeded to relate the whole story to Harriet Jones, who stood there, silent throughout the narrative. They made sure they told her everything that they knew except for the Eye of Skaro. Something told them that Harriet Jones had enough to worry about without worrying about a mysterious Eye on a parallel universe. That was something they'd have to work on themselves.

When they had finished, she waited for a while in silence before speaking.

"Come into my office... I think we could all do with a drink."

In her office, she poured out the strongest brandy in the cupoard, downed hers in one shot, and asked the all important question: "What are we going to do?"

"We're gonna wait." Theta announced with a sigh. "We don't know what's going on yet. We don't know what the Cult of Skaro is planning to do to us... we'll have to see what happens."

"The UN will have to be informed..." the Prime Minister began. "And Torchwood. Planet Earth must be prepared. We've been invaded by aliens once and I won't let that happen again!"

At that moment, the giant plasma-screen TV on the office wall flickered into life of his own accord. On the screen was the Cult of Skaro, looking directly at them.

The Prime Minister backed away in shock, looking pale, as the Dalek spokesperson began talking.

"This is a message to be viewed and understood by the Prime Minister, honorary leader of Planet Earth." he began.

"The people of Barcelona are ruled by us." The camera moved to show a man bound and gagged in chains.

"The World Leader of Barcelona is in our power. He was tied up by his own subjects. The people of Barcelona are ours to enslave. And soon we mean to enslave Earth." He spoke with a horrible sadistic streak that made Theta clench his fists in anger.

_"That's what would have happened to the other Time Lords, if they all hadn't died..." _he whispered to Rose as the Dalek continued.

"You WILL surrender." He spoke with finality.

"You will surrender this planet within 24 Earth hours, or Barcelona will be forced to declare war against Earth. And I would take the easy option... Barcelona is armed and dangerous. All the resources of this planet are at our disposal, and we will soon use them to conquer others. It's a battle you can't win."

He leaned into the camera and almost screamed the last words, his blue light flashing wildly.

"Surrender or DIE!" And with that, all the Daleks gave a terrible war cry and the image on the screen flickered into nothingness, leaving Theta and Rose looking rather worried.

The Prime Minister began to sway from side to side in shock. "I do believe... I might need a chair."

Theta grabbed her and led her over to a squashy chintz armchair in the corner of the office, where all three of them flopped down and pondered their options.

"Well, now we know what they're planning to do to us..."

"Am I right in believing we're the only people to have recieved this message?" The Prime Minister interrupted him.

"Well, he referred to you as "honorary leader of Planet Earth"... so it's safe to say we're the only people who saw that."

"Right, well... we have a lot to do! The Queen needs to hear about this - the first thing I'm doing is going straight to Buckhingham Palace."

She looked over at Theta and Rose. "And what are you going to do?"

Rose looked at her. "Ms. Jones... I am from Earth. I used to live in London - I was brought up here - I used to be human. I'm not gonna sit around watching our planet get invaded by Daleks!"

Theta grinned. "And as fantastic as your Earth defence is, I doubt you'll be able to stave off the Daleks without our help."

"Oh, I don't know... we have Torchwood."

"Torchwood?"

"They adapt alien technology... of course it's a top-secret organisation, no-one's supposed to know about it, but it's all going to come out now. A lot of things are going to come out now."

Theta stood up, pulling Rose with him. "My wife and myself are at your service."

"Excellent!" the Prime Minister beamed. "Come with me - we've got to get started!"

She bundled Rose and Theta away, down the stairs and into the hallway of 10 Downing Street, where they listened to the hammering of newspaper reporters on the Prime Minister's front door.

Harriet Jones made up her mind, put her hands on her hips and walked over to her umbrella stand just beside the door. She selected a long black umbrella with an extremely sharp point and looked over at Theta and Rose.

"This should sort them out! We're going in!"

And with that, she opened the front door and around twenty cameras flashed in their faces, everyone began talking at once and the stampede resumed even more fiercely than before as everyone in the street tried to get to the door.

The Prime Minister held her umbrella aloft and motioned for Theta and Rose to walk directly behind her. She battered her way through the crowd, brandishing her umbrella left and right and attacking several journalists with it, to yells of pain.

"Stand aside, you idiots!" She roared, whacking the head of Channel 4, who had been called in to investigate the commotion, very hard on the head, causing him to fall to the ground with muffled yells and expletives.

Slowly the enormous crowd parted to allow them through, the press making sure they were right on the edges to take as many pictures as they could. The Prime Minister, Theta and Rose proceeded outside into the street and the Prime Minister blew on a loud, pirecing whistle. A black limo and driver suddenely appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. The driver got out and opened the door, and all three of them scrambled in. The driver got back in, slammed the door and away they went in a cloud of dust, leaving the entire crowd staring after them.

The limo headed straight for Buckingham Palace, and the driver got out and let out Theta, Rose and the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister lost no time and turned to Theta and Rose.

"Are we going in the front gates?" Theta jerked a thumb at the tourists, who had now noticed the Prime Minister's limo and were jabbering excitedly in Japanese.

Prime Minister laughed. "No! No-one really uses the front gates, you know. Those things haven't been opened in years. Everyone goes in the back way, by the kitchens. Follow me..."

She walked up to one of the palace guards, who saw instantly who she was and let them in through the gates, successfully keeping out the Japanese tourists, who flashed their disposable cameras at lightening pace and attempted to push through the gates after the Prime Minister, to no avail.

Once inside the palace, she took them right round the back, where they saw an old, rough wooden door shoved into the wall of the building, at the end of one of the flower gardens.

Rose stared at it. "THIS is how everyone gets into the palace?"

The Prime Minister smiled. "It's as good a door as any. And it saves you from a lot of the papparazzi..."

She took out a worn bronze key from her pocket and turned it in the lock, which yielded with a squeak and granted them admittance to... the palace kitchens. They strided through, the chefs taking no notice, and followed the Prime Minister.

"So how come you know your way around the Palace?" asked Rose as both she and Theta tried to keep up with Harriet Jones, who was striding along at a furious pace, every inch confident and decisive.

"Oh... I've been here loads of times before. The Queen takes it upon herself to make a personal friend in all the Prime Ministers..." Harriet Jones waved a hand dismissively.

They were nearing the Queen's private suite now... they stopped right in front of an enormous, varnished door.

Just as she was about to knock, Harriet Jones closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself and for that moment, she looked almost human. But then that look of slight fear and apprehension vanished and she was back to herself again. She knocked on the door with a steady hand, and the Queen's suprised voice called back to them.

"Come in."

And Harriet Jones entered with Theta and Rose.

The Queen was sitting at her desk - upon seeing them, she got up and moved into the middle of the room.

"Harriet! What are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry ma'am, I would have called you earlier to let you know we were coming... but this is urgent."

"Go on..." the Queen prompted as Harriet Jones paused and looked uncomfortably at the floor.

"The thing is... there's a troupe of violent aliens who travelled accidently through a loophole and ended up on our universe. They landed on Barcelona - that's an alien planet, ma'am - and started wreaking havoc. They've tied up that planet's world leader and enslaved all the people. And I recieved a message only half an hour ago telling me that they plan to enslave Earth, too. They'll declare war on us if we refuse... we have 24 hours to respond to them or... WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" The Prime Minister screamed at the Queen, who was now looking incredibly shocked.

She stood there staring at the three of them, mouth open incredibly wide.

"WHAT?" It really was a most undignified response from a Queen.

Theta scratched his ear like he always did when he was uncomfortable. "It... wasn't meant to come out like that."

The Queen stood there for a moment, then seemed to collect herself. "Is all this true?" She asked Rose in a strangled whisper.

"Y-yes, ma'am..." Rose answered shakily.

"And... is there anything we can do about this situation?"

Harriet Jones looked the Queen in the eye. "As I see it... the only thing we can do is to fight."

The Queen took charge. "I shall call a meeting immediately. The conference shall be in the Palace within one hour... we need Torchwood representatives there, the UN, NATO, the President of Alaska can come too, I don't care. Harriet - send word immediately!"

"I'll call my secretary..." mumbled Harriet Jones, nodding. They all turned to go, but before they could leave, the Queen stopped them.

"And you two... are the Doctor and Miss Rose Tyler, yes? The two people who flooded London?"

"That would be us, yes." Theta looked delighted that she'd remembered.

The Queen looked at them. "I'll be frank with you. If we're ever going to win this, we need your help. Will you assist us?" She sounded desperate.

"Of course we will!" Theta huffed. "Honestly, why does everyone sound so suprised that we're helping you humans? We're right with you, ma'am."

The Queen smiled. "Harriet, take these two away and spruce them up for the meeting!"

Harriet Jones bustled Theta and Rose out of the Queen's chamber and down some winding stairs into a room that resembled a beauty salon. Four women wearing too much eyeshadow walked over to them. Harriet Jones thrust a pile of banknotes into their hands and told them,

"We all need to be made fit to meet the Queen at a conference in an hour's time. See to it, please." And all the women rushed both her and Rose into chairs, and Theta into a separate room to be beautified, despite his protests.

Fifty minutes later, thanks to the beauticians chainging their minds a total of six times, Rose and Harriet Jones emerged completely transformed, now wearing heavy make up and a new set of clothes. As Rose flatly refused to wear the emormous frilly dress they presented her with, they allowed her to wear a shirt and jeans over an evening coat.

They entered a lobby and waited for Theta to emerge, which he did five minutes later, looking furious.

"They got me a gay hairdresser! He thought I was coming on to him the whole time after I asked him for hair gel! And as for a suit - huh! This thing's ridiculous! At least they didn't make me take off my coat - what?" He stopped, seeing Rose was staring at him.

"You look... different."

She looked him up and down. "They made you strighten your hair!" She reached up a hand to touch it gently.

"Yeah, well..." he looked at her and smiled approvingly.

"Make-up! Ooh! More than usual! Suits you, actually..." he mused, tilting his head to one side.

"They tried to make me wear a frilly dress! And a hat!" Theta laughed.

"Mmm... I'm glad they didn't take your coat..." Rose grinned.

"Makes you more of a Doctor and less of a pretty boy."

"Hey!" Theta grinned.

The Prime Minister interrupted them. "Come on you two - we don't have all day! The conference room's this way... and we REALLY don't want to be late."

The conference room was a rather small sitting room, cosy and well-furnished in expensive wood and leather. There were few people in the room, less than twenty, but it was clear how important they were from the authority they exuded. For its size, it was very heavily crowded with members of the press, who crowded around photographing and recording everything. There were four chairs at the head of the room with microphones and stands. Harriet Jones made straight for them, and sat down at a chair as Theta and Rose hastened to copy her.

An automatic voiceover spoke. "Her Majesty the Queen will enter presently. Please rise."

Almost on cue, the Queen walked in unceremoniously and sat down at the last remaining chair as everyone stood up and then sat down again. She got straight to the point.

"I am afraid I must ask every member of the press, journalists and photographers to wait on the balcony outside this room until the end of the conference."

"Thank you." she added as the press trooped out, mumbling complaints under their breath.

Facing her small audience, she started talking.

"I have called you all here today because a crisis faces the human race. It is a crisis greater than you know. Greater than our discovery of aliens. It is, in effect, the greatest tradegy to befall mankind. Some of you will be frightened. Some of you will think all is lost. But hear me out! Do not despair before you hear the end."

Theta rolled his eyes at the over-dramatisation.

" A troupe of aliens have landed in our universe. How, I do not know or understand. But they have terrorised the planet they have landed on. They have captured it, they have taken the world leader of that planet hostage, and they will soon force it's people into an army that will travel across the universe to destroy our planet if we do not submit all our people to slavery. They have made us an offer - slavery or death - and we have 24 hours to respond."

"Ladies and gentelmen... I can only see one alternative. We must refuse their offer. We must form an army of our own, the better to defend ourselves. We are going to fight back! And I give you my word - if I can help it, we WILL win this war."

Instead of clapping and cheering, everyone sat in complete silence as the message sunk in - that in fact, Earth was at war with another planet. Gradually, however, they came to understand what was going on.

"Is this true?" whispered the President of Alaska, who had in fact been getting incredibly bored fishing for plankton and so had boarded a plane to spend a week on holiday in London, when he received summons to the Palace.

"Of course it's true! This can't be a hoax - we're in Buckingham Palace, for heaven's sake!" barked the Emperor of Mongolia.

"It is true - it's more than true - it's a real problem and we have to do something about it!" Rose yelled across the hall at the President of Alaska, suddenely realised what she had done, turned bright red and mumbled an apology.

But at her outburst, everyone slowly began clapping and cheering. The Queen, looking a little put out that they had clapped for Rose and not for her, raised a hand quickly and the clapping died down.

"What on Earth are we going to do?"

"You 'eard ze Queen - we must raise an army!" the French President cut in.

The Queen interrupted him. " We are battling an alien force - in reality, there is nothing WE can do - except for Torchwood."

"Torchwood?"

"The Torchwood representatives, who unfortunately I could not contact, will need to work in partnership with these people." She motioned for the Doctor and Rose to stand.

"These two know more about aliens than everyone in this room - you may recognise them as the people who flooded London. They are the Doctor and his wife, Miss Rose Tyler. They are essentially aliens, but they are on our side. Their job will be to work with Torchwood to create an army of the kind we have never seen before. When we fight back, we are going to need all the resources the world has to offer - men, labour, raw materials, money. Anyone who has the power to contribute any of these things must do so. But above all, we put our trust in two outsiders. It is the Doctor and his wife who will ultimately save this planet. They are our secret weapon."

Everyone stared at them, most of them in polite acceptance.

"Now, do you have any ideas?"

The Queen turned to them and the next hour flew by in a huge rush of immediate preparations from various countries, including importing 10,000 Eskimos from Alaska to work on machinery for the Earth's armed forces, the Queen's suggestion of training the Army on how to combat alien life forms and South America promising enormous donations from the Mafia. Theta and Rose cut in with suggestions from time to time, giving various people instructions and directing them.

Before long, however, messages came through that the press were waiting outside, and the conference was forced to a halt. Harriet Jones steered Theta and Rose towards a set of double doors.

"You're going to have to meet the press, I'm afraid... they're all waiting outside."

She opened the doors and waved both of them and the Queen behind a long red curtain framing a small balcony overlooking a huge expanse of... people. The crowd surged directly onto the street outside the Palace, and the noise was incredible.

Television cameras were everywhere - above the racket they could hear the BBC reporter speaking frantically into a camera.

"This is the BBC News 24 reporting live from outside Buckingham Palace, where we have received intelligence that an emergency conference has just taken place of the kind we've never seen before. At the centre of the issue are two of the occupants of a builder's truck that crashed into 10 Downing Street only a few hours ago. It has recently become apparant that they are the same two people who flooded Central London and saved the planet from an alien invasion..."

Theta peeked out from behind the curtain and panicked.

He grabbed Rose. _"Are we supposed to make a speech or something?"_

_"What? It can't be that bad, there can't be too many people there..." _Rose looked out of the curtain and gulped. _"Ah..."_

_"Exactly!" _

On the balcony, the Queen had already stepped out and was explaining the situation to the now almost silent crowd - the reason for the conference and for the first time, everyone got to hear exactly what was going on.

At the end of her speech, the crowd clapped and cheered and Harriet Jones nudged both of them. "C'mon, on you get."

The Queen began introducing them. "People of London! People of the world! Meet the two people who will lead us through this war! put your hands together... for the Doctor and Rose Tyler!"

Theta grabbed Rose's hand as they were pushed onto the balcony, in front of the sea of people. Everyone clapped and cheered vigorously, including the BBC cameraman.

"Ladies and gentelmen, the central figures in this mission to launch an Earth army in what is now an interplanetary war... they are on the stage..."

The crowd cheered in an ear-splitting roar, and looking down at the sea of smiling faces, they both just stood there and grinned back for what seemed like an eternity before going back inside the Palace.

The BBC reporter grinned into the camera. "And it appears that our new heros have gone down a storm with the crowds. And they'll need all the support they can get - the world is at war. I repeat: the world is at war. It's an interplanetary battle - and the question is, will any of us come out of it alive? Hugh Edwards, BBC News, from Buckingham Palace."

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Charlie is doin' great - please message me with any enquiries concerning my lil'chainsaw friend. And please review!


	7. Chapter 7

Next chapter guys - I'm so sorry it's late, and probably really badly written. Things do actually get prett interesting soon. But enjoy anyway...

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The next six months were spent in a whirl of new publicity - Theta and Rose were kept in the public eye, but also in the private one. They met with Torchwood and various governments, and had their work cut out for them in organising almost single-handedly the technology, men and weapons of a New Army - the like of which the world had never seen. They also had to deal with frequent threats from the Cult of Skaro on Barcelona, who were also competing in a race to build up an army large enough to crush the other planet. To make up the numbers, Earth made alliances with other planets nearby in the universe, but so did Barcelona. Before long, almost every planet had taken one side or the other. The war was truly on. 

The Queen offered them quarters for themselves in the Palace, but both of them flatly refused, preferring to live in the Tardis, which stayed in a corner of the Powell Estate and adapted most welcomingly into a marital home. Theta loved it, which was interesting in a Doctor who didn't do "domestic". Both of them were, in fact, the essence of happiness, and if it wasn't for the fact that they were at war, the story could have ended here. Happily ever after.

But then, a turning point. An event that changed just about everything. An event with consequences that was going to rock the universe to the core.

It started on a Monday morning - it was freezing cold outside and the rain pounded on the Tardis. In their double bed, the noise woke Rose, who was, unusually, still sleeping at 9:00 in the morning. Theta insisted on a complete alarm clock ban on the Tardis, not being able to tolerate being woken up by a shrill bleeping ring. Rose still remembered the first thing he said to her when he heard he had to work: "_They had better not put me on a nine to five routine..." _As far as he was concerned, he'd rather be in the bowels of hell than in an office with a coffee machine. Anything to avoid the daily bore - he'd much rather be late than on time. So, no alarm clocks. It was part of the domestic Tardis.

Rose, not liking being late, did a double take when she saw the time and jumped out of bed in a panic, grabbing a dressing gown and wrapping it round herself. It was then, standing on the carpet, that she was overwhelmed by the most unpleasant and familiar sensation. Reminiscient of the time she'd downed fifteen vodkas at a birthday party.

Rose turned and made a mad dash for the bathroom.

On coming out again a short time after, her face pale, Rose staggered down the hallway and into the kitchen. Theta was sitting at a table with a pinstriped tablecloth, shoving cornflakes into himself. Upon seeing her, he frowned and examined her closely.

_"Rose... are you alright?"_

_"Yeah... I'm fine. I just threw up back there. Must've been Jackie's cooking..."_

_"Ah... yes, that could explain it..." _He grinned and took her hand.

And that would have been that, except that the next day, it happened again. The next morning, Theta entered their bedroom half-dressed, and shook Rose gently, who muttered something in her sleep.

_"Hey! Sleepyhead!" _Rose sat up and got out of bed, her face suddenely going pale again.

_"Are you alright? You look a bit - " _And to her intense embarassment, Rose was sick all over him, then collapsed in his arms.

Theta didn't mind too much about that, really. He placed her back on their double bed, removed her dressing gown and told her very firmly to wait, ignoring her protests that she was fine really.

Some time later he emerged, dripping wet in a new shirt and towelling his hair. He sat down on the bed.

_"Now, we're gonna find out what's wrong with you..." _He pulled several items out of his dressing gown pockets. Bending over her, he stuck a thermometer-like object into her mouth for a split second before pulling it out again. He fixed a pressure guage on her arm, looked into both her eyes and flashed a light in them, and used several other devices before moving away to scratch his head in frustration.

_"Temperature's normal, homeostasis regulator's all fine, overall body pH fine, so what...?"_

_"Theta! I'M fine! Probably just a bug..."_

_"See, that's the thing, if it was something would've picked it up by now..."_

_"You worry too much!" _Rose yawned suddenely and rubbed her eyes with her hand.

_"Alright... c'mon you, up you get..." _Theta pulled her up and motioned for her to get dressed.

It was early the next morning, while at work, that disaster struck. The Prime Minister took Rose to observe a new atomic airship in London, capable of firing burning radioactive metal hundreds of miles in a vacuum - space. The test flight was done in the outer atmosphere, but as a precaution only non-radiocative metals were used. Torchwood had developed full-body rubber suits for the Army that were resistant to radiation, intense heat and provided a source of emergency breathable air. An army aeroplane was flown up over the test site with Rose and the Prime Minister on board with the army, and while the airship was firing a hail of burning hot metal, a small team of crack soldiers jumped steadily off the plane, parachutes at the ready, down to the ground below.

Everyone waited, tense, as the airship began firing. Soon the sky was gray with falling metal, all set alight. The effect was of a sky on fire.

The soldiers in the ship were almost too scared to jump. Almost. The Prime Minister opened the hatch and announced to the line of men, "When I count down to one, everyone jumps out as fast as possible. Don't think about it - concentrate on making it down to the ground. When you make it, run for the Army base. That shouldn't be more than 500m away. Does everyone understand?" Everyone nodded.

"Good luck." The Prime Minister began to count. "3... 2... 1... GO GO GO GO GO!"

And everyone jumped - the soldiers threw themselves off the plane one after the other, and they flew through the air like bombs through the hail of fire.

Standing there just in front of the hatch, watching them go, Rose was again overwhelmed by intense nausea and weakness. The height she was at added to the dizziness - everything suddenely went black and Rose lost all control of her senses. Before anyone could grab her, she had collapsed and fallen down through the hatch, without a parachute or an insulation suit. She was falling faster and faster to the hard ground below - if someone didn't stop her, to certain death.

The Prime Minister saw her at the last minute and stretched out a hand to grab her - too late. She could only yell after her as Rose plummeted downwards.

But then, when she was hardly 5m out from the plane, the Prime Minister saw golden dust begin to engulf Rose, as Bad Wolf suddenely began working with Rose unconscious. An almost blinding yellow light swirled around her, turning steadily whiter and more powerful. When she was covered in dust and a swirling mass of light, Rose began to fall, ever so slowly, down towards the ground, the light deflecting any pieces of burning metal that came her way. But throught it all, the more metal it deflected, the more the light was worn away. The effort it took to lift Rose and deflect metal was draining the light, with Rose unconscious - soon, it had thinned down almost to nothing. 20 feet above the ground, the light shrivelled down to a thread, then... nothing.

And Rose fell, faster and faster, until... she hit the ground. Hard.

They picked her up from the ground after she fell in a crumpled heap, took her away and bundled her into the nearest ambulance, where she was driven to hospital, breathing only shallowly through an oxygen mask.

The ambulance veered though streets at over 100 miles an hour, screeching violently, and it was only after Rose arrived at the hospital that the Prime Minister remembered, "Someone has to tell the Doctor!" She organised for her limo to arrive at the crash site, and had herself flown down. Withing minutes, the limo was racing towards Cambridge, where the Doctor was giving a lecture on alien atmospheric composition.

In an enormous room with wood-panelled floors and red leather seats, the Doctor, registered as Professor John Smith, stood in front of a blackboard that had ridiculously complicated diagrams scrawled all over it in his messy hand-writing. The Doctor looked at the crowd and tapped a drawing with the chalk.

"Now this is a prime example of a _natural_ atmosphere without gravity. It exists because the planet is in a space pocket unaffected by the Sun's gravitational pull - in-between our universe and a universe with a black hole at the centre, if you like. Because it's in the middle - he drew an elliptical circle on the drawing - we have an area around it with not gravity, an area over here with small gravity fields, and this little area _here_ - he shaded it in - this space pocket, has a slight, natural anti-gravity."

The scientists all nodded and wrote things down in their notebooks.

At that moment, the Prime Minister stuck her head around the door. "Doctor? I... erm... really need to talk to you. It's urgent."

"Please excuse me for a moment."

Theta frowned and walked out into the hallway, where the Prime Minister looked at him sadly.

"Yes? What is it?"

"Your wife's fallen fifty feet out of an aeroplane." And Theta just stared.

"We've got an emergency case, woman with a parachuting team fell fifty feet out of an aeroplane, still alive but possible broken bones and running on oxygen. She's arriving in under two minutes, can we have a team of doctors ready immeadiately." The ambulance driver spoke into a tannoy as the vehicle zoomed on. Rose, still unconscious, was lying on a stretcher, an oxygen mask attatched to her mouth and nose. Blood dripped into a plastic sac next to the stretcher and a heart machine beeped next to her. She was a complete mess.

The stretcher was wheeled into the hospital, and the doctors were on her within seconds. Someone shouted above the noise, "Patient pulse rate 50 by 30 at time of crash, raised to 75 by 55 within five minutes. Heart rate fine but the scanner must be broken, we're picking up a double pulse. She's on oxygen and quite stable."

The team of nurses wheeled the trolley down corridoors and into a bed at Accident and Emergency.

Meanwhile, the limo was speeding back to London, with the Prime Minister making frantic phone calls and Theta sitting there in shock.

"Yes, I'm calling about a woman who fell out of an aeroplane. Is she in this hospital? What do you mean, patient confidentiality? Do you know who I am? I'm the Prime Minister - "

Theta motioned for her to give him the phone. "I'm her husband. Now, is she here?"

The receptionist replied in the affirmative. "And that's King's College Hospital, London?"

Another affirmative.

"Right, tell the driver to step on the accelerator." He said to the Prime Minister.

In the hospital, doctors and nurses rushed around checking over Rose.

"Purely by touch, she's covered in bruises but I can't seem to find any major broken bones - that's amazing! Pulse rate 90 by 70, she's almost normal."

"Why isn't she waking up?"

"No idea...what do we do?"

"I don't want to start any x-rays or scanning until she's awake - she may not be fit to be x-rayed, and she's not in a critical condition."

"Her husband's on the way... the Prime Minister just phoned reception to ask where she was..."

"The Prime Minister? No kidding! She must be important!"

At that moment, Rose opened her eyes and felt the edge of a blinding wall of pain.

"ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Get her some morphine!" The nurses ran for the morphine and it was soon injected. Rose fell beck on the pillows, still in a lot of pain but now able to fight it.

"What... what happened?"

The doctors and nurses bustled around her immediately.

"Right, stay calm now. You fell out of an aeroplane."

"I fell out... of the aeroplane?"

"You remember the plane, then?"

"Yeah... yeah... I fell out?"

"You fell fifty feet, yes. It's a miracle you're not dead by now. Will you let us do some scans for analysis? We need to make sure you're not suffering from internal bleeding or broken bones."

"I..."

"Excellent!" And before she could speak, let alone move, the trolley was wheeled away.

A couple of hours later, Rose awoke in a hospital bed, head perched on a pile of pillows. They had taken her away to a room to x-ray her head, chest and vital organs - by the end of it she was so tired from her ordeal that she had fallen asleep again.

A doctor walked into the room, and seeing she was awake, looped his stethoscope around his neck and moved over to her bed.

"We've got the results of your scans." he said quietly. Rose sat up and looked at him.

"Is... is there anything wrong?"

"Well, contrary to all expectations after a fall like that, there's no internal bleeding. You have, however, broken two ribs, but they will heal on their own. There's also a lot of bruises to clear up, and some quite deep cuts - but you should be fine in a week or two. Now, the thing I need to talk to you about is that we've discovered something else."

"OK... what is it?" Rose prompted him as the doctor paused.

"Well, erm, the situation is rather strange, actually. We took a blood sample for analysis and... there seem to be minute golden flecks floating in your blood. We took a second sample to check. Our blood analysis team can't tell if you've been poisoned or if it's all a mistake. But the other thing... we did a full body scan on you. And it turns out that we found a foetus, as yet incredibly unhurt by the fall - it was still wholly alive, as far as we could tell. Madame... you appear to be pregnant."

_Theta is going to have kittens._

The Doctor strode into King's College Hospital an hour later, taking the whole thing in with the usual authority he displayed when he was unusually worried. He went over to the reception desk and looked around.

"Hello? I'm asking about a lady who fell out of an aeroplane..."

A woman with a nail file and a uninterested expression came over. "I answered the phone... do you want to know where she is?"

"Yes - I'm her husband."

"Alright - hope you didn't bring that nutter on the phone who was pretending to be the Prime Minister. Huh - bleedin' cheek, that's what I say..." The receptionist continued the idle chatter as she searched the database for a match.

"Yeah - she was in accident and emergency but they've moved her into intensive care. It's the Jenner Ward, Bay 6. First floor, second turning on the right."

"Thank you very much." Theta ran out of reception.

He strode up flights of stairs, ran down a corridoor and stopped at Ward 6. He saw Rose straight away, ran to her and enveloped her in his arms.

_"You're alright!" _And Rose clung to him, suddenly really needing him. She buried her face in his hair.

He examined her quickly. _"Don't you do that to me again..."_

_"So, what did the doctors say?" _He sat down on the bed, ignoring the plastic visitor chairs.

_"Apparantly, I have two broken ribs, plus various bruises and cuts, etc. etc. But nothing serious. You're gonna need to talk to them about my blood samples, though."_

_"Uh-oh..."_

_"Yeah, and there's something else."_

_"Theta... I..." _Rose looked up at him, wondering exactly how she was going to put the fact that she was now pregnant...

When one of the nurses came in. "Miss Tyler, just to let you know, the doctors have given you the all clear, you'll be transferred to the maternity unit as soon as we have a vacancy..."

Theta's mouth dropped open. He stared at Rose.

_"Did she just say what I thought she said?"_

_"You mean the bit about the maternity unit?"_

_"Yeah..." _he breathed, still staring at her.

_"You're... pregnant?"_

Rose just nodded. And Theta's face broke into a slow, wonderful smile as he stared at her.

_"You... don't mind?"_

_"Hey! You didn't think... I wouldn't want this child...?" _He stared incredulously at her. Rose looked at him. He smiled.

_"Rose... our baby, it's just... fantastic." _He kissed her, stroking her hair, and she grinned up at him. The yellow sparks began to fly and suddenely they were lost in a _moment _again, and the universe could have ended right there but lost in each other, they wouldn't have noticed.

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Reviews are loved. 


	8. Chapter 8

Hello! God, you must all think I'm dead... or worse. My excuse is that my cousin's been here for a week and it's taken me as long again to clear the backlog of homework.I'm really being an ignoramus - I'm gonna have to work my socks off to get this finished before Series 3 turns up, so updates may be quicker in coming, I have no idea as yet.

In case people here have no idea what is going on... Rose and Theta (aka. the Doctor) are married, Rose is pregnant and there's an interplanetary war going on at the moment between Earth and a horde of Daleks on Barcelona because the Daleks (aka. the Cult of Skaro) want to sell all the people on Earth into slavery.

Reviews will be thanked next chapter.

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On Barcelona, the Cult of Skaro's spies soon infiltrated back the information - Rose Tyler was with child. This prompted an emergency meeting of the Cult of Skaro on Barcelona, which was now a grey and blackened wasteland, with all the people sold into slavery, and the Cult of Skaro's military being formed on other planets. Hardly any buildings were left, there were no traces of Barcelona's once great and beautiful civilisation. From time to time stray, emaciated dogs howled and ran through the streets, practicing cannibalism. 

The Cult of Skaro entered the factory and got straight to the point.

"A child will soon be born of Rose Tyler."

"She is the Bad Wolf!" screeched Dalek Sek. Everyone looked at him.

"The Bad Wolf is a being of power. Her child is a being of power."

"Her child is more powerful than us. It is a threat!"

"Her child could destroy us all if it lives!"

At that moment, a man bent over with age crept into the factory from a side door. He stumbled over to the Daleks, dropped a long piece of paper on the ground, and looked up at them.

"Well? Is your service complete?" Dalek Jast screamed at him.

The old man nodded, trembling. Dalek Jast raised his sucker, and the man began to cry silently, tears rolling down his face. He made no attempt to stop them as the sucker was raised and electric blue fire shot down onto the old man, igniting on his flesh so that it surrounded him. Screaming in pain, he writhed on the floor, still crying, and the Dalek looked down at him, completely emotionless, believing he was dead.

He turned away from the body.

"He was the last one left! Why did you destroy him?" roared Dalek Kahn.

"His service is complete." replied the other Dalek.

Dalek Sek turned to the piece of paper, absorbing the information quickly.

He turned back to the Daleks. "The energy within the child could form a device. A device that could make us multiply. Thousands of living copies could be created. The Genesis. We would defeat the humans."

"The Bad Wolf is immortal."

"Her child is not. The child's energy is raw, uncontrolled, and the only energy in the universe compatible with Dalek technology."

In the background, the old man that had been zapped picked up his burnt body and got shakily to his feet. He then ran off without any of the Daleks noticing.

He read from the sheet. "The only other source of raw energy in the universe is the Void."

"The Void!" The word triggered the memories deep in their brains that had been suppressed by the intense torture the Dalek Emperor had put them through, so long ago.

"The Eye of Skaro!" It was shrieked by Dalek Kahn, and at the sound of it, everyone fell silent as the memory suddenely flooded back.

"It is of no use to us." The opinion was finally pronounced.

"But it is of use to the Doctor."

"His Tardis will have remembered! The Doctor will know!"

"They could cross the Void and use the Eye to bring back Gallifrey!" The Cult of Skaro shuddered.

The sheet was read from again.

"We can react the child with the Eye's energy!"

"The child has raw energy. It would destroy the Eye forever!"

"But then the child would die. We could not use it to win the war." The Daleks knew Earth and Barcelona were about equal, and without using the child to multiply Daleks again and again, the war could go either way. As yet, neither side had an advantage. But the Eye of Skaro could do that for the humans if the Daleks didn't stop it."

"We will use the child to stop us from losing the war." decided Dalek Sek.

"The Doctor and the Bad Wolf are human at heart. They will feel the loss of their child. They will struggle in command of a war of the universe. They cannot win if a broken man leads them!"

"We must kidnap the Bad Wolf... and her child."

"That is the plan."

The Daleks all trooped out in silence, having nothing more to discuss. On the blackened earth outside the factory, the old man stood up, having heard the entire discussion. He ran into his battered workshop, determined to carry out his final venture. As well as the plans for the Cult of Skaro, he had been working on a transportation machine - just powerful enough to take him to Earth. He was resoloute - he was going to travel to Earth and try to warn this Rose Tyler that the Cult of Skaro were coming for her - he knew she, along with this Doctor man, was the only hope of Barcelona's salvation - and he would do anything to try and salvage something of his homeland. The only question was - would he get there in time?

On Earth, Theta had spent the night at the hospital, and when it became clear that Rose really wasn't in a fit state to go back to the Tardis, he had refused to leave, despite everyone's protests, including Rose's.

He drew the hospital curtains and had begun pacing the space around her bed, deep in thought.

_"Y'know, you're the first of your kind. Well, we're the first of our kind, actually. I've never done anything like this before!" _He sounded incredibly excited.

_"But d'you know what I think? I think you're suffering from extreme morning sickness. What did you say you had, again?"_

_"Vomiting, dizziness, everything goes black..." _Rose watched in bemusement as Theta walked around, muttering to himself.

He stopped suddenely. _"Rose, when you fell out of the plane, was there anything holding you up?"_

_"Holding me up?"_

_"Yes, or protecting you..."_

_"Just after I fell out, I had this wierd feeling... like there was a yellow light..."_

_"Hah! I was right! Bad Wolf is acting up, like a protection mechanism, but it can affect you in other ways too. It's going to be very wierd for you - anything could happen, really. Bad Wolf isn't used to being a mother... when she's got a reputation for being a destroyer." _He resumed his pacing.

_"_

_"Okay... so we have the second beta particle, ADAT gene regeneration, cross that with the DNA matrix... that's difficult..." _Theta stopped again and looked at Rose, who was now frowning at him, attempting to work out what he was on about. He smiled.

_"Y'know, this is the hardest thing I've ever done... talk about facing an alien invasion, forget that, my wife is pregnant!"_

He stopped again. _"There's another thing - the baby's a hybrid cross. So it gets double all of the Vortex plus Time Lord plus human plus Bad Wolf genes, etc. etc.. I've got a strong suspicion it's still mortal. Immortality won't kick in until a few days after it's been born. Now, because of it's hybrid DNA, it's emitting huge amounts of cosmic energy from the Void as it grows - it's gonna carry on doing that. Listen..."_

They waited so the hospital was in complete silence, and then... they heard it, an almost inaudible, high pitched humming. Theta grinned.

_"There you go..."_

_"Woah! You're right, this kid's probably gonna be a handful. You're taking me on, then?"_

He sat down again, staring at her incredulously. _"'Course I am! Couldn't have any Earth doctors dealing with you - they'd make a huge mess of it... Nah, you need a real Doctor."_

_"Theta..." _At his smile, Rose found herself suddenely overcome with emotion.

He patted Rose's stomach. _"Rose... I like this kid already..."_

Rose yawned suddenely and Theta looked at her. _"C'mon you - shut your eyes..." _He tucked the covers gently around Rose and stroked her hair for a long time. Exhausted from her ordeal in the plane, Rose fell asleep almost straight away, and Theta looked down at her, thinking hard. Eventually, he decided not to try and stay awake and slid into the bed next to her. Almost as tired as Rose, his eyes closed instantaneously, he felt for Rose's hand and before long he was sound asleep.

He was woken several hours later, by someone shaking his arm. Rubbing sleep out of his eyes, he saw the maternity doctor standing in front of him. The middle-aged man was staring at them incredulously, looking rather alarmed.

"Wake up, wake up! I've just examined your results and... I have NEVER seen anything like this before, not in my entire medical career. It's unnatural. It can't be a mistake. Apparantly, your baby survived a fifty foot fall, completely, and I mean COMPLETELY, unharmed. Not only that, but your blood samples were... inhuman! I've never seen anything like it... there's gold flecks floating in them, and... your baby has two hearts." he breathed.

Theta stood up. "Shh! You're going to wake my wife!"

When the doctor had quietened down, he began. "Alright, now, this is going to be a bit of a shock, but... this is not a normal pregnancy."

Well, I gathered that much!" the doctor began angrily.

"No, no, no, you don't understand. It's an alien pregnancy. The thing is, we're not... really human. We're a sort of hybrid. Bound by blood - heard of that? We're literally bound... by a transfusion of blood containing the Vor... this really powerful substance that changes the DNA of someone after the transfusion."

"So you're alien. I've got an alien mother in my maternity unit. Are you wearing camouflage, or something? Do you have five heads?" The doctor stared at them. "How do I know I can trust you?" It came out in a whisper.

Theta chose to ignore the last question, having spent the last six months as the unofficial head of Planet Earth, preparing the human race for war against another planet.

"Of course we don't have five heads, and no, we're not wearing camouflage. Look, it's all under control. You don't have to do anything - as soon as she's better I'll have her out of here before you can blink and she'll be fine."

The doctor opened his mouth. "One more thing - the child appears to be radiating a sort of... unidentified energy?"

"That's right!" Theta beamed. "Excellent scanners you've got - that's cosmic radiation, emitted as the child grows, but essentially contained within it. One AA battery of that's enough to power Planet Earth's electricity for six months..."

Theta should have seen the gleam in the doctor's eyes at that moment that meant he'd had a sudden idea. The look in them was manic, and altogether... incredibly sinister.

"I see... thank you." And the doctor walked off, leaving Theta to fall asleep once more.

The doctor walked out of the ward and into the coridoor, his head buzzing with four of the words Theta had said, _"...essentially contained within it." _The amount of energy in this child was awesome. It could provide the human race with enough energy for the entire future. But "essentially contained within it" could only mean one thing. The true form of potent energy was within the child, not emitted. The only way to harness that... was to kill it.

And so, one simple human had the same idea as the Cult of Skaro, on Barcelona.

Some time later in the night, Rose awoke, Bad Wolf suddenely activating. She opened her eyes very slightly, and heard the doctor's footsteps echoing down the corridoor in the pitch blackness. He came into the ward and moved over to her bed, completely unaware that she was awake. He had a mask over his face, and had a team of similarly masked assistants, complete with white overalls. She saw the doctor reach into his pocket, and pull out a large hooked metal knife, scarily sharp.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, as he raised the knife over her, preparing to strike.

Rose got out of the way.

As quick as lightening, she grabbed Theta and pulled him, along with herself, away from the bed, the knife hitting the matress and cutting straight through it.

Theta, now awake, stared at Rose, and everyone around him, who were all waiting in complete silence, unsure of what to do next.

_"What the hell is going on?"_

_"No idea..." _Theta stood up and tried to take in the situation. Rose clung to him, the shock finally setting in, and he looked down at her, always more competent after spending 900 years escaping from people who were trying to kill him.

But he understood. He wasn't able to forget the time when he felt exactly the same way... so he squeezed her hand, stroking the fingers until she let go of him.

_"That's better..." _Theta muttered. _"Okay... so, what the hell is going on?"_

_"He tried to stab me..." _Rose gestured at the doctor, who Theta eyed with newfound distaste.

_"Hmm... any idea why?"_

_"Nope..."_

Theta addressed the room at large. "Alright... we're getting nowhere just standing here. Can anyone ELSE here tell me what the hell is going on?"

The doctor spoke. "Don't take this personally, now - we've got nothing against you. But your child has power. You said it yourself, that kid has cosmic radiation within it. We could power the human race for the future."

"But - you'd kill it!"

"For a good cause. Please. We need this... it would provide enough energy for the human race to survive generations."

"And they would live because of this? Because someone DIED for them?"

"But they would live!"

"BUT MY CHILD WOULD DIE!" Theta roared, staring the doctor in the face.

"Using cosmic energy would create a human race powerful enough to conquer other planets. I know you all too well - you wouldn't use it for good, just a little bit here and a little bit there and soon the whole universe is yours. Clenched in an iron grip. I promised not to give you what you can't handle - the human race can't handle this power."

The doctor stared. "If you won't reason with me... I'll have to take it by force."

The doctor and his assistants ran at them as one, giving Theta a second to hit the security alarm. A resounding bleep echoed down the hallways and suddenely everyone in the ward woke up and panicked. All the mothers in the maternity unit began screaming, nurses ran around trying to restore calm and in general, a large crowd emerged in the ward, filling the corridoor.

Theta grabbed Rose by the hand and ran off with them through the crowd of people, ignoring the doctor and his team, who were attempting to break through the crowd.

They found a fire exit and burst through it, running through the back carparks and out into the street.

_"Call the Prime Minister!"_

_"There's no time for that - we're gonna have to get a bus... follow me..."_

Theta ran off, Rose following in his wake. A night bus drew up on the high street, and Theta ran up to it. Muttering something about the Powell Estate, Croydon, he shoved a twenty pound note at the astonished driver amd told him to keep the change, took Rose up the stairs to the top floor, which was completely deserted, and sat her down at the back.

She didn't give him a chance to say a word before launching into a tirade.

_"Theta! What the hell did you say to that doctor?"_

_"I... nothing!"_

_"What did you say?"_

_"I just told him about the kid, I didn't think..."_

_"That's right, you DIDN'T think!"_

_"Well, how was I supposed to know - "_

_"We could have died! Our child could have died!" _Rose's hormones, already turned upside down by the pregnancy, went into overdrive.

_"Hey, you fell out of that plane!" _Theta sat up, rather cross about the situation.

_"There was nothing I could do!"_

_"Well, at least no one's coming after us now..."_

_"Look!" _Rose stared out of the huge glass window behind her. Following her gaze, Theta noticed a black BMW speeding along after them, clearly following the bus.

_"Ah... well..."_

_"You imbecile! You absoloute idiot!"_

The telepathic argument carried on all the way to the road outside the estate, where the bus stopped and so did the black car. Theta grabbed Rose and ran down the stairs and out of the bus, seeing people getting out of the car and running in their direction.

They both sprinted for the Tardis, the doctor right behind them.

_"This is all your fault!" _Rose yelled, almost in tears.

Theta stopped then and stared at her. He yanked open the Tardis door and they both ran in, then he slammed the door behind them and turned to Rose.

_"This is MY fault?"_

He just looked at her, and his hair was all windswept and she really loved it like that and his clothes were a mess and she really wanted to straighten his tie and a tiny part of her was screaming at her to STOP... but...

_"Yeah, it is!" _She poked him in the chest.

Theta leaned against the console and sulked. _"God, you're just like your mother... did the rest of the neighbourhood get it this bad when she was pregnant with you? Did your father -"_

_"DON'T TALK ABOUT MY FATHER!"_

_"Don't you go blaming me Rose Tyler, if it wasn't for me you'd be dead by now -"_

_"If it wasn't for me you'd be worse than dead, ages ago! You'd be caught up in your own misery, that's what, you wouldn't be who you are, you'd just be a lousy little Time Lord!" _And there was a sudden shift and everything changed, quite suddenely, from cross to positively ferocious.

The sparks literally flew. They were both suddenely consumed in a flash of brilliant white that very nearly electrocuted them. Far from calming them down, however, it made things worse.

_"THAT'S A FATHERLESS LOUSY TIME LORD TO YOU - I NEVER KNEW MINE!"_

_"All these years, I've been the kid who was left in the corner, the person no-one cared about, left alone even after my people died and my planet wiped from the universe... and YOU!"_

He stared at her. _"After I met you, everything fell away. Because I thought you cared. I THOUGHT YOU CARED! Finally, someone who gave a damn about me. What d'you think I'm standing here for? I could've left, you know. Did you ever think about that? I'm standing here because I CARE, and I don't have a clue why I'm bloody obsessed with you... because you obviously don't give a damn!"_

_"GET OUT!"_

_"What?"_

_"You heard. You're sleeping at my mother's tonight..." _She pointed a very stern finger at the door.

_"No! I'm not sleeping at Jackie's!"_

_"Oh yes you are!"_

_"Fine!" _Theta yanked open the door again.

_"See if I care! I wouldn't say sorry to you in a million years!"_

He disappeared and the door slammed shut behind him.

Alone in the Tardis, Rose could hear the voice inside awakening. It was going to tell her something about making up with the Doctor, she was certain. It was going to make things worse than they already were. She couldn't stay there... so she left the Tardis too, leaving it completely deserted. She ran blindly away, down several roads and into a deserted side alleyway, entirely ready to have a good cry.

Now as it happened, leaving the Tardis was the worst thing she could have done. Because the Cult of Skaro had managed to complete their long and dangerous journey to Earth, using the most primitive technologies. All they had with them were transportation devices - circular discs with a large button in the centre - that could be used to transport them to the parallel universe and the Eye of Skaro.

They had landed in a deserted quarry in Aberdeen, Scotland, the United Kingdom, Earth, and it had taken them an entire day to travel down to London, carefully taking the most deserted routes, and where it couldn't be avoided, pretending to be newly-designed prototype robots doing a test run for the war against Barcelona. They had managed to sucessfully locate the Powell Estate where they went up to the first person they saw, an ageing old lady with a shopping trolley.

"Excuse me."

The woman turned around.

"We are looking for a woman. Her name is Rose Tyler."

"Oh yes - Rose Tyler, lovely girl, I saw 'er running down that alley just a minute ago. Looked a bit upset - "

At that point, Dalek Sek raised his blue laser and shot her straight through the heart, so that she lay silently on the floor without twitching, stone dead. He laughed, and the Daleks moved on down the alley way.

Rose was leaning against a brick wall, crying intermittently and thinking miserably about Theta - the very person she thought she should be thinking about the least - when the Cult of Skaro approached in the alleyway behind her. The Daleks silently made their way down the alley, excruciatingly slowly. They approached Rose and suddenely, Dalek Sek raised his sucker. An electric blue light shot out, stunning Rose and leaving her immoblile. Before she could do anything about it, the Dalek pulled out a disc with it's sucker, and pressed a small button on it. Immediately, a bubble formed around them and they all vanished - on a non-stop flight to the Planet of the Daleks.

* * *

Review! Please... 


	9. Chapter 9

New chapter! It's been so long and I'm so sorry! But it's half term now... so I might get more done. If you're looking for anyone to sue because I'm not reviewing anyone's stories, the best people would be my piano teacher, my flute teacher, the directer at the Festival Hall, my Latin teacher and my athletics coach, plus numerous others that I can't even think of right now.

Please review, even though I don't really deserve it.

* * *

The day, which had up to this point been incredibly sunny, darkened in a matter of moments, as befitted a day the middle of winter. As Theta stormed up concrete stairs to Jackie's flat and knocked on the door, the rain poured down without any warning and drenched him completely.

"Oh, it's you..." Jackie trailed off at the look on his face.

"Rose threw me out of the Tardis!" And Jackie burst out laughing.

Wiping the tears from her face at long last, she realised Theta was still standing there. "Had a lover's tiff, did you?"

"You could say that..." Theta muttered, then Jackie stared at him suspiciously.

"What're you doing here, then?"

"Well... can I sleep on your couch?"

Jackie opened her mouth and would have replied rather rudely to this, but at that moment there was a huge roar from the darkened sky up above them. It grew louder and louder, and soon they both had to cover their ears. Suddenely, Theta noticed a dark silhouette of a ship above them.

"Oh my God - Jackie, look!"

A flying saucer was zooming down towards them, through a gap in the clouds. As Theta and Jackie ran out towards it, it started rapidly growing in size, until it was about as big as a people carrier. It soared on down towards the ground, with no sign of stopping. Theta saw this and yelled to Jackie,

"TAKE COVER!" They both dived behind a nearby wall not a moment too soon - seconds later, the object smashed into the middle of the road at high speed, sending tarmac chips flying and smoke billowing out of the ground, from which Theta was sure a fire had started. The rain doused the saucer and a shower of steam replaced the smoke. Out of the wreckage then crawled an old man.

He was barely alive - his body was covered in cuts and bruises and his face was as black as charcoal. He was shaking so violently he could hardly stand up... it was clear the journey to Earth had put him through a lot. He stood up on wobbling knees and managed to croak,

"I... I'm looking for the Doctor."

"That's me!" Brushing wet hair out of his eyes, Theta ran up to him. "What is it?"

"Your wife! Your wife... Rose Tyler... have you seen her? Is she here, right now?"

"Well... the thing is, we had a bit of a fight and... she's not here."

"Oh! I'm too late!" The little man wrung his hands, wincing in pain as he did so.

"You're too late? For what?"

"I feared this would happen... if I'm not mistaken, Sir... I believe your wife has been kidnapped by the Cult of Skaro, who have transported her to another universe, and are now... into the process of trying to kill your baby."

Silence for a moment. Well, it was rather a lot to take in all at once.

"WHY DOES NOBODY TELL ME ANYTHING?" Jackie screeched suddenely, coming to her senses.

"ROSE IS PREGNANT? AND NOW SHE'S BEEN KIDNAPPED? OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!" Poor Jackie's vocabulary had clearly failed her.

"Ah, yes... well, we were going to get round to telling you about the pregnancy bit, it's just... things got in the way..."

Not able to think of a suitable verbal reply to this, Jackie did what came naturally... she raised a hand and slapped the Doctor as hard as she could.

"OW! What was that for? Don't you think we've got enough problems as it is?"

He turned back to the catastrophe at hand and looked upwards into the slanting rain, his face set like steel.

"If they've taken Rose... we've got to do something about it."

Dalek Sek hit the button and Rose was suddenely plunged into what looked like a complete blackness. Although aware of the Cult of Skaro's presence around her, she couldn't see through the haze and for a few seconds, they remained completely still, floating in the darkness. The effects of the stunner the Daleks had used on Rose wore off then, and as Rose immediately flexed her arms and legs and got ready to run somewhere - anywhere, when without any warning, they were jolted forward.

Rose opened her mouth and screamed but couldn't hear herself as they were zoomed, unimaginably fast, in a particular and seemingly random direction. They were moving so fast that on top of the pregnancy, Rose's stomach couldn't take it and she vomited again and again as they sped along, dry retching for several minutes before she had enough control to wipe her eyes and look around her. Nothing had changed. She instinctively put a hand to her stomach and was startled to feel that it was slowly increasing in size! Seconds later, she froze suddenely as she felt the baby kick. That should never have happened - she was only a week or two down the line, wasn't she?

Her stomach expanded, her jumper tightened around her abdomen, her thighs became curvier, and generally Rose began to panic. What the hell was going on here? It felt like her pregnancy was on fast forward...

They sped on, and suddenely a very faint light appeared in the distance. They sped increasingly closer towards it, yet the light did not get any larger, but remained as small as a pinprick. The unexplainable effects continued on Rose, until her clothes were almost torn to shreds and it became clear that she was very heavily pregnant. When they had gotten close enough to the light for Rose to be able to reach out a hand and touch it, they plunged out again and reappeared.

The first thing she knew on the other side was nausea. Intense, blinding nausea. She grabbed the nearest support and struggled to remain upright as her head tried to cope with the change of universe. White sparks burst on the extremes of her vision, and everything became tinted red as the world spun around her. Moving through the Void was an incredible distance to cover in a short time - in a heavily pregnant woman, then, the result was like being in a fast car with your stomach full, amplified unimaginably.

Spluttering, she turned with an effort to face the troupe of Daleks, who didn't look remotely fazed.

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Her head was bursting.

"It is no joke."

"Where are we?"

"We are on the planet of the Daleks."

"Oh yeah? What's it called, then?"

"It has no name."

"Why did you take me here?"

"To kill your child and use the energy emitted by its body to power the destruction of your universe and the victory of the Daleks!" You couldn't argue with that.

Especially when Dalek Sek shot out another blue beam and Rose was stunned again. Combined with her intense headache and general motion sickness, it was enough to knock Rose out altogether and for the meantime, at least, she slipped into blissful unconsciousness.

Harold's truck zoomed through the streets at it's usual terrifying speed and awful driving. Jackie was in the front seat, being violently sick into a paper bag, and the old man was in the back with a load of building tools and a large stack of bricks that was almost his height. It was precariously perched on the seat next to him, and looked ready to topple over. The old man eyed them apprehensively. As usual, however, they had a bigger problem - Harold was driving down the M5 during the rush hour, and that meant TERRIBLE DANGER.

As Harold zig-zagged through the motorway, narrowly avoiding trees and lampposts, the cars and lorries on the motorway absoloutely panicked, and scrambled to get out of the way. Two people carriers crashed into each other, creating a terrible mess, a taxi was de-roaded by a giant goods carrier, plunging into the overgrown plants by the roadside, and an unfortunate motorbike flipped over with the driver only just managing to run for it. All the drivers began shouting angrily and honking their horns, someone started up a siren and chaos ensued. To make it worse, the slanting rain that bucketed down meant no-one could really see what was going on.

Shaking his head, Theta realised something had to be done, and yelled to Harold above the commotion. "STOP THE CAR!"

But above the absoloute noise, Harold simply couldn't hear him, and carried on driving. Deciding not to try and wrestle the steering wheel off him from the back of the car, Theta took his coat off, yanked open the door, got out of the moving car, ran round to the back and quickly threw himself into the boot. Here, he started searching the back of the truck. Soon, he found an old rope in the corner which he grabbed and then tied firmly to the arm of the rearview mirror that stuck out of the side of the truck. Clamping the rope in his teeth, he clambered from the back of the truck onto the roof, where he crouched down ready.

He took the rope out of his teeth and yelled to Harold, "Get in the car and drive!"

Harold swerved through the streets with his usual recklessness, but this time Theta was ready. As the truck started off again, he began, in a very imprecise way, to roar out instructions from the roof of the truck and tell Harold what to do with the truck.

Staying upright on a truck going at over 80mph while roaring out coherent instructions was a huge challenge, and Theta would have doubted his ability to do it if he hadn't been hybrid. Swaying a little, he straightened up to his full height in order to see what was going on all around him.

As a surreal figure on top of a car, with his shirt sleeves billowing in the wind and his hair plastered to his head in the freezing cold and rain, he remained there for the next fifteen minutes clinging tightly to a rope and managing to prevent any fatal accidents as the truck proceeded on down the motorway towards London. But through it all he could feel a stab of desperation, such as he had never felt in a long time. He was painfully aware through all of it that Rose was in desperate need of his assistance - but he was the Doctor, not a snivelling wreck. He was going to keep his emotions to himself for as long as it took... even though it was so desperately hard for him.

When they got into Westminister, they became aware that something was wrong. Everything was too quiet. Theta suddenely realised what he had seen when he was on the motorway - all the cars they had seen had been moving _away_ from London, extremely fast in fact. Either side of the Thames, things were deserted. Harold parked the car on a bridge by the river and everyone got out and looked around.

"There's no-one here!"

"Where've they all gone?"

Theta motioned for everyone to get back in the car. "OK, something is very, very wrong here. Back in the car... let's go find the Prime Minister."

He got back onto the top of the car and managed to point Harold in the general direction of the Prime Minister's residence. As they powered down the street, Theta stared at the building and saw a black limo speeding down the road with all haste, directly towards them.

"Oh my God, Harold, stop the car, stop the car!" Jackie screamed, so terrified she'd forgotten her car sickness entirely.

Harold pulled hard on the emergency brake, as did the driver of the limo. With a horrible screech, both vehicles ground to a sudden halt mere centimetres from each other. A sickening crash and tinkle of broken glass was heard from the truck followed by a terrified yell, and Jackie's exclamation of,

"Oh my God - Harold, get him out of there!"

After several seconds, it emerged that the pile of bricks and building material next to the old man had all fallen on him with the sudden stop and he was pulled from the wreckage looking bruised and rather miserable.

Out of the limo then stepped the Prime Minister, mouth wide open in shock.

"Doctor! Thank goodness you're here! I was just coming up to find you, we need you now, it's a disaster!"

Theta jumped off the truck roof and stared at this babbling woman. "Woah! We don't have time to do _anything, _I've come here to find you, we have an emergency -"

"Get in the limo!" Without further ado, Harriet Jones piled him into the limo.

"Wait - bring him too!" Theta had a sneaking suspicion that the little old man and shut the door. In the back seat, she looked the Doctor in the eye, absoloutely distraught, and launched into a frantic, garbled account of exactly what was going on.

"Listen to me! I've had a message just under five minutes ago from Barcelona. It appears that the Cult of Skaro have disappeared, but they left instructions for their troops to begin an immediate attack on Planet Earth! They told me I had a final chance to accept their terms of slavery before they set off to destroy us. Well, I said no. I had to , didn't I? And their commander took me at my word. Millions of ship batallions are headed towards our outer atmosphere - we've got 30 minutes - but we should be able to do something about it, although it was so unexpected - we've got to contact the Army! The Air Force! Torchwood! The message's been blasted across the city, we're trying to evacuate London, it seems to be working, everyone's moving away to the country, they'll be safer there. The army will probably head for London first, so we've got to get all our forces here... but most of all, Doctor, are you ready? We need you!"

"Oh Rasillion..." Theta put his head in his hands. "You have no idea how dangerous the situation is now..."

"What? What's happened?"

He explained the situation to her in as few words as possible. The Prime Minister's face turned white and for some time she just stared at him, unable to believe what he was saying. Eventually, she spoke.

"That is terrible timing. We've got a kidnap and an alien invasion..."

"You've got to help me!" Theta looked her in the eye.

"I know there's a crisis going on but I'm not abandoning my wife! You have to help me."

The Prime Minister averted her eyes. "What do you want us to do? Your wife is beyone all help now, Doctor. She's in another universe - we can't get over there, we don't have that kind of technology. The Daleks are going to kill her."

"No they're not!" roared Theta. "At least, not if I have anything to do with it."

"I'm sorry Doctor, but we can't save her now. Rose - is - gone. Try to save her and the universe will be in jeopardy. I'm sorry, but we can't help you. We're in serious danger and we've only got time to save ourselves. If you won't help us then I can't take you any further. Decide now."

With lightening speed, Theta reached for his sonic screwdriver which was still in his pocket, and held it to her neck for several seconds. The Prime Minister's eyes closed, and Theta grabbed her as she fell backwards onto the seat, before quickly doing the same to the driver. He then carefully laid the driver in the back of the car, got in and put his head in his hands, completely unsure as to what to do next.

From the back of the car, the old man coughed to get his attention.

"I... ahem... have something to confess, actually. You might have been wondering how I knew about your wife's kidnap... the reason is that I was forced into working for the Daleks, before they kidnapped your wife. I invented the device that allowed them to take your wife across the Void to the parallel universe. In that respect, this whole thing is my fault."

Theta stared. Then he shook the old man furiously. "How could you do that? How could you?"

"Put me down!" cried the man, his eyeballs squelching around in their sockets from the force of Theta's shaking. Theta put his head in his hands, completely despondent.

"I don't know what to do now..."

"I'm sorry! They would have killed me if I'd refused - "

"Who?"

"The Daleks..."

Theta glared at him, still surly. "I really should throw you out of the car..."

"But I can help you!" The old man said quickly.

"Don't you see? I was the one who designed the machine... I'm the only person who knows how to get across the parallel universe... you need me."

"Can you really do that? Can you do it here and now? Can you build that machine?"

"I don't know... I'll have to start from scratch, think things through..."

"I'll give you as much help as you need... The Tardis is yours, do whatever you want to it..."

"Alright then, I'll try. But it's going to be difficult. How long do we have? Before the Barcelonian army tear us apart, that is?"

Theta started the car and drove up the street. He looked at his scared reflection in the mirror.

"Half an hour..."


	10. Chapter 10

I am only too delighted to grovel (verbally, of course) at the feet of anyone gracious enough to read this, and to employ the full range of adjectives in my appraisal and gratitude for your kindness.

When I start a story I never forget it, and anyone reading this will be pleased to know I have finished the entire story now, and will post a chapter every week or so - you have my word. The plot veered entirely off the rails - it perpetually does - but all loose ends have been tidied up and it is now complete. So, you may understandably wish to familiarise yourself before reading on.

Reviews are gratefully received, as they always are.

* * *

Rose awoke, perhaps unsurprisingly, in a cell. It was a bare metal affair, built according to primitive Dalek design, with no windows and a bed in the corner - despite this, Rose woke up lying on the floor. She sat up groggily and looked around her, taking in her surroundings with an eye now quite used to such situations, thanks to her adventures with the Doctor.

What she managed to deduce in the following minute was:

1) that she had been captured, evidently by the Daleks

2) that she had been taken across some sort of portal

3) that in a matter of seconds, her pregnancy appeared to have fast forwarded, leaving her with what looked ominously like a nine-month gestation

4) Apparently, she, or at least the child in her womb, did not have awfully long to live.

The situation was desperate. She looked down at her stomach and resisted the urge to go completely mad, which was exactly what her instincts were telling her to do. A thousand questions were whirling through her head – had Theta even realised what had happened? Was he still furious at her? She had absolutely no doubt that if he realised she was missing fast enough, something was going to happen. And knowing her husband, it was going to be something big... whether or not it actually worked. As far as that was concerned, she lived in hope.

But she wasn't about to sit around like a damsel in distress waiting for the Doctor - of course, there was no guarantee that he _was _coming, just a hunch. She walked around her cell, observing it from all angles. After a few minutes of examination it appeared that the door to her cell was very firmly locked and magnetically bolted. She raised a fist, almost certain it would do no good, and banged hard on the door.

Then, she heard a grating voice from the guard on the other side of the door.

"The hostage is awake. Bring more sedation!"

"Confirm continued activity of the hostage..." A nearby intercom blasted out.

"NO!" Rose yelled suddenly, realising what was going on. They were going to keep her asleep until they were ready to... operate. She yelled to the guard.

"Don't do that! Don't you want... someone to talk to?"

Quite unknowingly, Rose had sparked off an idea in the Dalek guard's head, and his voice yelled back uncertainly down the corridor.

"Negative. The hostage was physically reacting to the sedation."

Rose let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. A new voice sounded over the intercom. "Removal device will be ready in five Earth minutes. Prepare hostage for removal."

Silence fell as the intercom clicked off... and then, the guard spoke. "You're right, Rose Tyler. We do have things to talk about."

The Doctor stepped on the accelerator as the car zoomed down Westminster streets, while the old man thought about what they were going to do.

"The thing is, we're in a really tricky situation..." The old man announced to no-one in particular.

"Tell me something I don't know..."

"If we're going to rescue your wife we'll need to make a portal, somehow. A tunnel in between both of the worlds. And you're going to have to go through and back again."

"We're going to have to go through the Void! We'll never make it out alive!"

"Who said anything about we?" The old man looked wryly at him.

He continued, staring fixedly at the road in front of him. "How long will it take to reach your... Tardis?"

"It took us thirty minutes to get here," The Doctor muttered. "With the entirety of London trying to get out it'll take longer to get back."

Suddenly, a grey object similar in size and shape to a snowflake floated down to brush Theta's cheek. Looking up, he saw several others about to join them. The old man's face turned white.

"What's happening?"

"The army's getting close – the ash is from their engines. Once they've found London's exact location, they'll start bombing it. We've got seconds!"

The snowflakes turned into a torrent, turning the sky grey and blackening the rain

"Alright... Plan B. What's the best place in his city to create a portal?"

"I... I'm not sure..." the old man stuttered.

"Come on! Think!"

"Well... you have to be somewhere high up... the atmosphere's that bit thinner up there... What's the highest building reasonably close by?"

"Canary Wharf..." Theta breathed, turning on the ignition and stepping on the accelerator.

As he did this the first bomb fell, startling them both. Several kerbstones were blasted to smithereens on the kerbside in a small, compacted explosion, along with the breaking of several windows in the vicinity. Seconds later, one fell on an abandoned car, which promptly burst into flames as the bomb released a load of fumes smelling like sulphur, to add to the flames.

"Intelligent Bombs..." the old man muttered guiltily. "They're designed to maximise damage – they release chemicals, burst into flames or do anything to cause more disaster... depending on their target."

"I take it you designed them, then? What happens when they come into contact with humans?"

"They let off a small shower of industrial strength battery acid..." The Doctor glared at him.

Meanwhile, in the back of the car, the Prime Minister groggily opened her eyes, the sedation the Doctor had administered just beginning to wear off. She looked around her at the limo driver soundly sedated next to her, the Doctor driving and the old man in the front of the car, and panicked. In fact, she would have been about to scream anyway, when another bomb went off nearby.

She really did scream then.

The Doctor turned round in alarm and realised what had happened. Quickly, he scrambled into the back of the car and re-applied the sonic screwdriver to the driver's neck.

"One panicking person at a time, thank you very much..." he muttered.

"Okay... Prime Minister, I know this is really unexpected, but..."

"It's them, isn't it Doctor? The alien threat..." The Doctor nodded.

"Listen to me. When we get to Canary Wharf I can get out – you can drive away from here then, you'll be safe."

The Prime Minister looked about to remonstrate, so he continued. "You were right. I've got to do this on your own."

"Oh no you don't! I'm not leaving you now! My life is in danger, Doctor. Until help arrives, I get the distinct impression that the safest place I can be right now is with you. And you never know... I may be of help." The look in her eyes made it clear she was not to be argued with.

The Doctor turned back to the wheel, with almost no change in his facial expression except a slight curve around the corners of his mouth. They kept driving through the rain of bombs, which started with a trickle but soon got progressively heavier.

The car ground to a squeaky halt exactly twenty nine seconds later – the last terrified stragglers were still fleeing the city as the old man got out of the car and stared at him.

"We've got to get higher!" He ran inside, Theta and the Prime Minister on his heels.

"Go up the fire escape..." Theta opened a small side door to reveal concrete steps, which they took at a run all the way up to the top floor, and from there onto a large concrete expanse that overlooked the entire city. He was about to go up onto the expanse when a bomb exploded in the middle of the expanse, creating a shallow crater and sending concrete chips flying. The Doctor got out of the way.

"Excuse me?" The Prime Minister looked on the verge of breakdown.

"What are we doing here? We're just going to get hit by more bombs if we go up there!"

Stuck on the flight of stone steps, Theta briefly explained the portal principle. The Prime Minister's mouth dropped open.

"Oh my God..."

The Doctor began talking very, very fast. "If we're going to open a hole in the universe we're going to need two things. One – a power source. That's going to have to be something big, something huge in fact. How big is the hole going to have to be?"

"Smallest you can get away with might be... circular, half a metre diameter. It's not difficult to form a tunnel across the Void – it's mostly empty space, and dark matter. Breaking the hole open's the big part – and breaking a hole on the other side."

"What's that, in energy terms? Several trillion mega tonnes?"

The old man shook his head. "I don't think you can quantity it. I've never had to deal with energy amounts this big before."

The Doctor resumed. "Two - we need an energy converter..."

"What d'you need for that? You're not going to be able to make anything complicated, there's not enough time..."

"Just something for the power to flow through... come on, think!"

The Prime Minister suddenly pointed to bundle of high electrical cables above them. "How about something for the power to flow _down_?"

The Doctor looked up out of the fire escape. Sure enough, there they were, thin black lines that cut across the tops of the buildings, at waist height from the top of the building. Electricity pylons! He gave the startled Prime Minister a sudden, impulsive hug.

"That is... genius! The National Grid! Only the biggest power source in the country. And we're in the city centre – with any luck, there's going to be one hell of a charge in those pylons! If we can get something to focus all that energy around one wire..."

Sparks of white-hot frustration shot from his fingers at that precise moment, and... he had a brainwave. Or rather, Bad Wolf did.

He looked at the other two, ideas zooming through his brain. "You realise what we're going to have to do? There's only one force on this planet big enough to release and focus that amount of energy. There's only one thing to do... I'm the power source."


	11. Chapter 11

Hello! Next chapter is up as promised... and the GCSE results are in! OMG! That basically covers it - today I've been a headless chicken, in almost every sense of the phrase. Ah well. Enjoy!

* * *

Meanwhile, in her cell on Barcelona, Rose stared at the other side of the door.

"Let's talk." Repeated the guard.

"What do you want to talk to me about?"

"I want to help you."

This was greeted with understandable scepticism.

"And why would you want to do that?"

"I want to take revenge... on my brothers. The other Daleks in the Cult. Since the moment we were born by the Emperor of the Daleks, there has been rivalry among us. I knew more than my brothers – the emperor had accidently made me omniscient. A mutation in the creation process. I could see into the past and all the possible futures. I saw all that was, and all that could be. They could not understand my superior intelligence. They have always hated me for it. For years they pushed me to the sidelines. Always... always... Dalek Kahn was to be the hider, the coward, the slave in the background. They didn't understand the pain of knowing everything, seeing everything at once – how it hurts, all the time. They gave me a poison – they secreted it into my shell many, many years ago. A parasite that fed on my inner matter slowly, using a powerful acid. It is destroying me from the inside out. I can see the possible futures – I know there I nothing I can do. Death is approaching – my own brothers have killed me. Their actions will be revenged!" His sucker flashed manically on and off.

"If you and the Doctor are kept alive, there is a chance that you will destroy them. They do not deserve to be Daleks after what they did to their brother. If I revenge their actions I will die with honour!"

At that second, Rose's womb suddenly racked in pain. Contractions. Arrived with terrible timing. The sudden stab was white hot and burning. In a panic, Rose realised that she was going into labour. Suddenly, terribly, Bad Wolf surged within her. A concentrated cosmic energy was absorbing the intense pain, emanating from her. She doubled over, yelling in pain even as it subsided.

The pain terrified her. She was going to lose all control if she didn't do something. Bad Wolf was going to go wild... it could wreak havoc... she wasn't going to be able to carry on much longer if she didn't do something.

_Theta... I need you._

She looked back up at the Dalek, beginning to take in what he had said. "I see... So how are you going to... help me?"

The intercom sounded again. "Hostage must be prepared for removal in two Earth minutes."

"We do not have much time! The Doctor and yourself are in incredible danger. The blood transfusion that made you immortal saved the Doctor's life at a price. Both of your sets of DNA have been twisted into a new form. It's a mutation – unnatural, unstable. More dangerous than the most lethal cancer you can imagine. It is making you immortal now, but soon the mutation will break free from its base and alter the entire structure of your genes. When it alters your genes you will no longer immortal – and then the resulting explosion will kill both of you without bringing you back to life, or leave you horribly burned. It saved the Doctor's life, but this time if it doesn't kill you it will turn you into a monster. Rose Tyler, if you do not do something about it, it will kill your child."

Rose's mouth dropped open. "Great! So you're telling me how I'm going to die? Oh, very helpful - "

"LISTEN TO ME! I don't know what you are going to do. I don't know how you are going to stop this mutation – you future is just too unstable. I will, however, let you escape this place – if you kill the Daleks."

"That's definitely gonna happen if I have anything to do with it."

"It is good – the scum! They do not deserve to live-"

"Yeah, yeah, you said... so how are you gonna get me out of here, anyway?"

"The hostage must be prepared in thirty seconds!" The intercom sounded impatient.

"I will provide a distraction so you can get away. Listen carefully – at the end of this corridor there is a room, the only other room on this base. It contains the machine that will reduce your child to concentrated energy. You will wait BEHIND the metal doors so they cannot see you. After I have done what I have to do you will run in, grab the teleportation device on the east wall and leave. The rest is up to you."

"Wait – is the Eye of Skaro in there?" Dalek Kahn nodded.

"I'm not leaving without it."

The Dalek paused. "I'll see what I can do."

Then he pressed the button that released the metal grille on the cell door and set off down the corridor, leaving Rose to follow in his wake. Seconds later, Rose saw a set of huge metal doors at the end of the walkway. As they approached them, Dalek Kahn pressed a combination of buttons on a keypad and one door opened, leaving Rose to hide behind the other.

Dalek Kahn moved across the huge metal expanse, and the other three Daleks turned to follow his movement. From her position behind the door Rose could see the machine shrouded under a black cloth in the centre of the room, with the three Daleks clustered around it. Directly in front of it was a glass cage on a pedestal with a small wooden cube inside it. Upon seeing it, Rose felt Bad Wolf resurge in her system. Her fingertips white hot sparked for a moment and she forced them to stop, fighting an inner panic. She was going to burn up if this carried on...

As Dalek Kahn approached his brothers, Dalek Sek spoke.

"Where is the hostage?"

Silence.

"Dalek Kahn! Answer me! WHERE IS THE HOSTAGE?"

"She's waiting behind the door."

And Dalek Kahn turned so he was directly facing the pedestal. Suddenly he shot out a blue laser directly onto the glass cage. There was a crash as the glass shattered, and then suddenly there was chaos. All of the Daleks began firing, Rose ran in among the temporary melee and grabbed the cube, feeling it hot in her hand.

Dalek Sek noticed her. "Stop the hostage! Sedate her!"

The east wall was only a few metres away – Rose ran towards it, and she was only a few steps away when the contractions came again. Doubled over in pain, she screamed and all three Daleks were stunned for a minute by the bursts of white light. As the glare disappeared, Dalek Sek suddenly remembered the teleportation devices. He turned and blasted them with a blue laser, watching them dissolve into dust with a smirk on his face. It was a good job he'd remembered to bring a spare – and that Rose didn't know anything about it.

Rose yelled in frustration, then noticed to her horror that the Daleks were closing in on her again. She ran towards the door as fast as she could, but three bullets of laser light powerful enough to blast her against the opposite wall were zooming after her.

In the doorway, Rose realised what was happening, and screamed in terror, almost certain she was going to die. But as fate would have it, she didn't. Dalek Kahn sped forward and absorbed the impact of every single one. The force was enough to send him flying through the air, to land in a crumpled heap on the other side of the floor, stone dead.

"I'm sorry," Rose whispered. Then she ran.

She sprinted as fast as was possible back down the corridor, hearing the pounding of her heart above the shouts and shrieks of the pursuing Daleks. Within seconds she was at her cell door – she slammed the button that caused her cell door to close and felt the live charges escape from her panicking fingers. The keypad plastic melted into the wall as the heat vaporised it, making it useless. But the door slowly started to close, as the processor remembered the keypad's last instructions. Throwing herself inside, Rose pressed herself against a wall and waited for the Daleks to catch up, absolutely petrified.

What on earth was she going to do now?

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Oh yeah... forgot to tell you about Charlie... he had his birthday last week, and I was going to get him a present but one day I happened to discover a lonely and abandoned baby hand grenade lying abandoned on my doorstep, so I gave it to Charlie who's promised to take really good care of it.

Charlie and the little tiny hand grenade both want you to review :D


	12. Chapter 12

Next chapter! Is there anything else I should say here:D

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On top of the roof of Canary Wharf, the Doctor was trying to persuade the others that he wasn't crazy.

"You – you could die! You could get fried! You're... completely crazy, you are!"

"This might just work. Here's the reason – I'm not just an energy source, I can control it. When the energy focuses along the wire I'm holding, it should travel straight through me. Moving energy is charged – it's attracted to anything that it can travel through easily, and I should be able to act like a superconductor. Result: I get the entire National Grid within a few seconds from one wire. That should combine with the cosmic energy, but has no outlet for the short time it's in my body. Because of my body's defence mechanisms, the energy should be expelled into one point in the air – that might be enough to cause a rip in time and space. Because Rose and I have Bad Wolf divided between us, the bond should act like a homing device – Bad Wolf will naturally try and bring the other end of the tunnel as close to Rose as possible. So the tunnel should lead me straight to her. That is... if EVERYTHING turns out right..."

"You're still crazy..."

"Of course I'm crazy!" He grinned.

The old man looked at him. "So... you're saying all we need is a pair of wire cutters?"

The Doctor blinked. "Er... yes, actually."

He took out his sonic screwdriver. "Setting 366D, I do believe. Now, your job – he looked at the Prime Minister and the old man – is to wait right here. If I fall off or let go of the wire, you have got to make sure I stay attached to that wire. That's the only chance I've got of surviving once the process has begun – an energy transfer like this can be done once in several years, that's for sure. If this goes wrong I won't be able to do it again."

"You know, no-one's actually done this before – I mean, they've done teleports and all that, but they're all high-level technology – no-one's tried to physically blast a hole in time."

"You're an incredibly brave man." The Prime Minister didn't often say things like that.

The Doctor shook his head. "If I was brave... I wouldn't be scared about it."

Then he leapt from the fire escape onto the roof of the building. Without pausing to think, he ran along the length of the roof to where a pylon crossed the sky. A bomb suddenly fell a few metres away. His hands sparked, blue and purple darts of terror. Fear was good. Fear would get him through this. That – and anger. He forced himself to turn his mind into an emotional whirlpool. His hands and feet were on fire with electricity. His hair stood on end. He could feel Bad Wolf resurging, differently to how it had before. Something was wrong! He could feel it. Something was hammering the same message over and over again into his skull – Rose was in danger. He was now not far short of panic. He aimed the sonic screwdriver, fired and watched as the blue light neatly cut the cable in two. The ends of the wire that dangled now sparked with their own electricity. Without pausing for thought, he grabbed the white-hot ends and... knew no more.

Still hidden behind the fire escape, the Prime Minister and the old man watched in amazement as the Doctor was consumed by a sudden white-hot fire. As the fire grew, the centre of the fire appeared as a solid sphere, that grew and grew until suddenly the whole thing escaped from the Doctor into one almost invisible point in the air. The point grew rapidly and soon an enormous hole appeared, as large as a man, glowing around the edges, with an intense all-consuming black hole in its centre. The Doctor let go of the wires as he was drawn inside and vanished from view.

Trapped in her cell, Rose felt the vibrations as her cell door was continually battered by lasers from the Cult of Skaro trying to get into her cell. With one final blast the metallic structure gave way at last, shattering into a thousand pieces, and Rose knew real fear.

The Daleks took their time cornering Rose, gradually forming a semi-circle around her with the cell wall pressing against her back.

The contractions came again then and Rose was temporarily lost to pain, screaming with three Daleks surrounding her.

"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" She heard the Dalek screech through a haze of agony. This was it, she thought. She honestly believed she was going to die.

And then... something exploded.

A hole ripped through the sky barely a metre above her head, and an intense white fire came pouring out. In a series of resulting explosions the sparks flew everywhere and a violent roar of thunder heralded the arrival of... someone who appeared, suspended for a moment in the mouth of the tunnel, able to fully view the entire situation.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!"

His hair was blowing around his face, his clothes were torn in several places and were hanging off him as he dropped down onto the floor, still glowing slightly from the effects of the journey through the tunnel. He looked, quite frankly, exhausted.

He got to his feet, took one look at her and as far as Rose was concerned, he was beautiful.

The Doctor took one look at Rose and anything else he might have felt took second priority to noticing the obvious. His mouth dropped open.

_"Oh my GOD... Did I miss something?"_

_"The teleportation sped up the pregnancy – Theta, I can't control it - " _As she said this she was rocked by another series of contractions that left her doubled over in pain. White-hot bursts of energy seeped from her as Bad Wolf struggled to break free from metaphorical chains. It was real. It was painful. Rose, however, was too preoccupied in a blinding white haze to hear herself screaming.

Realising the Daleks were preparing to pounce, the Doctor got out his sonic screwdriver and waved it at them.

"Don't... even...blink. Got that?"

He dropped down to his knees and bent over his wife, realising that the situation was... well, explosive.

_"Rose. Can you hear me?"_

His voice echoed in her head. She managed to nod.

_"Good. SNAP OUT OF IT NOW!"_

The white light suddenly faded and Rose looked up at him, shaking slightly.

_"Good to see you too, by the way..." _He held out his hand and helped her to her feet.

They both turned to face the remainder of the Cult of Skaro, who all pointed their suckers at them and screeched ferociously.

"YOU WILL GIVE US THE EYE OF SKARO!" roared Dalek Sek.

_"Wait a minute – you've got the Eye of Skaro?"_

_"Yeah..."_

_"Hand it over... I've got an idea."_

Rose rolled her eyes, but threw him the small wooden box, which he caught.

The Doctor held the wooden box and stretched out his arm, an odd look of hence unseen determination on his face.

"So here we are, then. I'm holding your future in the palm of my hand. That's right, all of you turn your heads and look at me... look at me and my little wooden box... Now, if I'm not mistaken, this box we've got here is intended to bring back Gallifrey during the time war, right? And your objective was to create an energy source powerful enough to destroy it? Oh, you're very clever. Very, very clever. But, as usual, I'm cleverer."

"See, this box does bring back Gallifrey, it's true. But the mechanism inside is very simple. How else would you fit the technology into one small box? That's the brilliant part – yes, things easily made are easily broken. But also – things easily made are easily changed. So what if I... reversed the polarity?"

He waggled his sonic screwdriver. "Instead of pushing Gallifrey further fowards in time, what if I pushed it further back? Further back enough to make sure it never existed, hmm? I'll tell you why I'd do that. Because this box was designed to bring both of those worlds forwards in time. If I pushed Gallifrey and the Time War back in time – guess who else gets pushed back so they never existed, eh? The ultimate evil -the Daleks."

_"NO! Theta, I am warning you, do NOT do that!"_

_"If I didn't want to do this d'you think I'd be doing it?"_

_"Of course I do!"_

The Doctor didn't answer. She was right – Rose knew him too well. But he had finally realised that the end was inevitable. As much as he wanted – craved – his people, he knew that this could be quite possibly the only way to defeat his ultimate arch-enemy... to trap them inside the walls of time forever.

Looking up, he saw that the ripped hole was slowly fading and decreasing in size around the edges. The sudden burst of energy had obviously begun to dissipate. He didn't have long, that was for certain.

He pulsed the screwdriver quickly against the side of the box, drawing it back in a complicated motion – just once, and then stared at the box, unsure he could believe what he'd done.

Rose suddenly yelled and dropped to the floor again in pain, which coincidentally was excellent timing.

The Doctor took a deep breath, broke the barriers and let himself go to the power he'd known he commanded ever since that blood transfusion that seemed a lifetime away, right now. Rose, realising what was happening, fought the pain as best she could and got shakily to her feet.

_"Channel the energy. Rose – listen to me. Make it flow. Make it __."_

So, Rose controlled the flow and focused it on that one wooden box held in the palm of Theta's hand – and the white hot sparks jumped the physical gap and streamed through the air into the box. Suddenly, the wooden box grew so hot the Doctor dropped it – although it didn't catch fire. It didn't even hit the ground. It stopped in mid air, rapidly gathering energy, and then – it began to sing.

And suddenly, the world around them began to turn black and hazy before their eyes.

The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and turned to the portal, which was rapidly diminishing in size and was now only just large enough to fit them through. They heard, momentarily, the Daleks thrashing around in the semi darkness.

"I'm sorry." The Doctor breathed the words, astonished to find that deep inside, in some small way, he really meant them. It was a single moment of the most subtle but desperate importance.

_"Get in. NOW!"_

Rose scrambled in and he jumped after her – and, for the final time, they were away.

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Please review...


	13. Chapter 13

Another chapter... thank you all so, so much for reviewing. It really means a lot. And I know there were other things I meant to say, but right now I've completely forgotten them... sheepish grin Oh, yeah - since we are near the end now, I will thank all reviewers at the end of the story.

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Back on the rooftop, the Prime Minister and the old man had noticed with some concern that the size of the portal was diminishing.

"They're not going to make it out alive." Decided the Prime Minister at long last. "There's no way they could stay so long in there without becoming Dalek dust."

And at that moment, she was forced to eat her words. Because the portal began to blaze with fresh light. And of course, against the odds, they had done somewhat more than survive.

Falling out of the portal onto the ground, everything was a blur at first. And then, Rose felt a pair of familiar arms pull her up from the ground, and together they saw the bombs that were still falling and hurtled for the cover of the fire escape. He pulled her inside the concrete stairway and hugged her and all of a sudden familiar floppy brown hair was in her face and her head was buried in his shoulder and she could feel brown corduroy against her fingers and... she had thought she would never feel that again

"Doctor! Rose! I... You..." The Prime Minister stood there with the little old man, absolutely amazed.

"What happened in there?"

And then, she remembered what she had been told. And she grabbed the Doctor's hands suddenly and put them to her temples and all of a sudden he could see exactly what Dalek Kahn had said about the DNA time-bomb. The Doctor's face turned white.

_"What are we going to do now?"_

Rose yelled at that moment in a fresh outburst of pain and collapsed on the ground. Theta looked at the Prime Minister.

"Have you got a helicopter?"

She beamed. "It's on it's way – I was afraid you'd never get back through the portal alive and I needed a plan B, so I phoned the Queen's private jet, who fortunately were still alive – apparently they're the last emergency unit that hasn't been called out. Told them it was an emergency." She waved a small cell phone.

True to her word, less than a minute later an army helicopter appeared, dodging bombs that were falling with admirable dexterity.

The small craft, embossed with the royal insignia, hovered above the roof, weaving in and out of the bombs, and half-a-dozen men clad in black dropped down as the Prime Minister shouted for help from the fire escape.

Upon seeing the men, she ran up to them. "Now don't ask questions. I want this lot in there – all of them – and you're going to take us wherever this man tells you to." She pointed at the Doctor.

With that, they all sprinted for the rope ladder leading to the helicopter, and once inside, the Doctor carried Rose into the back.

"The Powell Estate, SW19. Now! It's urgent!" His fingers glowed dangerously.

The pilot set off, cranking the speed dial to maximum, while in the back the Doctor grabbed a stethoscope and swung it thoughtfully while taking in Rose, who was by this time fast losing consciousness, and emitting harsh white sparks at regular intervals.

As the Doctor was aware, you couldn't give birth when you were unconscious. Worse than that, he was beginning to feel unusual pain, a weakness, a strange burning sensation in his toes that he could feel spreading. He realised what was happening – the mutations in his new DNA were showing their effects as Rose approached labour, and he guessed that he had minutes left. He sat down shakily and put his head in his hands, beginning to experience pure, undiluted terror.

The helicopter grounded down at the Powell Estate seconds later and there, still in the now bomb-shelled car park, looking mercifully undamaged, was his Tardis. As the helicopter landed, the Doctor grabbed Rose and carried her out before anyone could stop him. He sprinted with her to the Tardis which he opened, shot inside and slammed the door before crumpling against it in despair, feeling weaker by the second.

At that moment he felt Rose begin to stir in his arms. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and to his horror, what he had been secretly dreading had happened – her eyes were glowing yellow. Suddenly, with a rush, Rose's real eyes beneath returned for what seemed like a fraction of a second.

_"Can you hear me?" _

He heard Rose's voice through his shock, insistent and echoing – a telepathic yell. He knew that this was the last thing he would ever hear. This was life or death... he had a hunch it would be death.

_"Rose?"_

_"Open the Tardis!_

_"What?"_

_"JUST DO IT!"_

The Doctor didn't pretend to understand. He just put Rose down, crossed the room, took a deep breath and opened the grill that suddenly exploded in a burst of yellow light that threw the Doctor into a dead faint. The raw power of the universe escaped and ran riot in the Tardis... all its knowledge and power and glory and destruction. And what happened next was so simple it was genius.

The heart of the Tardis reclaimed what had been unwittingly stolen from it when Rose looked into it such a long time ago – Bad Wolf, and the destructive forces that came with the genetic mutation were drawn from the two time travellers back into the Tardis – the being that had created the exclusive bond between them.

Somewhere in the depths of the universe, the Face of Boe smiled.

The Doctor stood in their bedroom holding a tiny newborn in his arms, and watched his wife curled up fast asleep on their double bed, as her anaesthetic wore off. Rose, he thought, was unimaginably beautiful – the pink in her cheeks and her evident tiredness as she slept only accentuated this, in his opinion. With some amusement he noted that she was dribbling on the pillow again.

The child was a boy, with deep brown eyes that were almost black - Rose's eyes - and the barest hint of hair that appeared as a browny-ginger. Looking at him... memorising him, the Doctor could not put his feelings into words. You just can't quantify love for your son, and this fatherly affection was something he was very much unused to, having grown up on Gallifrey with their strictness and discipline and pride.

Humans had at least got something right, he mused. Families.

His abstract train of thought was interrupted as Rose woke up, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and smiled lovingly at him, blond hair splayed out over the rumpled pillows. The Doctor blinked several times before the faculties of speech were returned to him.

_"Rose... here he is."_

Rose's mouth dropped open. _"Oh... he's beautiful. He looks just like you!"_

_"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"_

Rose laughed. _"Like your ego really needs to get any bigger..." _

The Doctor handed over the small child, who nestled in Rose's arms as naturally as it had its father's.

She looked down lovingly at her son. He was worth it, everything they'd had to go through to have him safe in her arms, he was worth it a million times over. And from the way the Doctor was looking at him, it was clear he thought exactly the same.

_"So... what are we calling him, then?" _As her son gripped her little finger in both hands and squeezed hard, Rose softly reprised it from his grasp, and the baby immediately began crying surprisingly loudly as well. Rose had to rock him gently for some minutes before he fell silent.

_"He's definitely a Tyler..."_ The Doctor mused, watching the baby boy now half-asleep, with reddened cheeks as a result of the recent outburst that was definitely characteristic of Jackie. Rose agreed.

_"But what's his name?"_

_"Thomas."_

_"Why?"_

_"It just has a ring to it, don't you think? 'Tommy Tyler'..."_ Rose rolled the name over her tongue experimentally.

The Doctor shook his head in amusement. Calling his son 'Tommy Tyler'... well, that was interesting. But when he though about it, he really did quite like it.

_"Alright. Middle names?"_

_"Middle names?"_

_"Tommy here needs a good, strong Gallifreyan middle name..."_

_"'S down to you, then." _Rose grinned as she watched the Doctor think about it.

_"I think... Apollo. Yes – that's good."_

_"What does it mean?"_

_"I don't know- do you know what Thomas means?" _Rose shook her head.

_"Apollo's one of the nicer, more pronounceable Gallifreyan names."_

_"'Apollo'... yeah, I like it."_

_"Fantastic – Thomas Apollo Tyler, it is. He's going to do his parents proud..."_

He put an arm around Rose's shoulders and for several minutes they were lost in sentimentality.

_"D'you know what happened? When you opened the heart of the Tardis, I mean?"_

The Doctor shook his head, no. _"I don't know and I don't want to find out. I mean, we're both got two hearts but that's about it... I don't know whether we can regenerate, whether we can die... we'll play it by ear, shall we?"_

At Rose's agreement there was comfortable silence again.

_"Theta... when you sealed off the planet of the Daleks... you gave up the Eye of Skaro for good, didn't you? You can't get it back?"_

The Doctor looked at her, startled by the abrupt change in subject. Slowly, he nodded. _"It's alright – the Daleks would have destroyed everyone otherwise, and- " _

_"__I love you."_

Rose looked at him, eyes shining in wonder at the magnitude of his sacrifice – she knew he had thrown away his chance to get Gallifrey back to destroy the Daleks completely, for the sake of ordinary people who would never know what he had done.

She felt the Doctor's re-awakened, silent emotion at the final loss of Gallifrey that would burst out in torrents at the slightest let-up, and without even thinking she just pulled him in and kissed him, their first in what suddenly seemed like such a long time. Even through all that had happened, she was glad she could still remember _him_ – the feel of his skin, the hairs that curled lazily at the nape of his neck, the contours of his face that she had memorized long ago...

As they both clung to each other in that moment, Rose whispered endearments into his hair as he accepted his ultimate fate – Gallifrey really was gone, for good. Hot, bitter tears trickled slowly down onto Rose and not for the first time, he was very glad she was holding onto him like she would never let go. He could well have surrendered himself to the oncoming storm that always threatened to devour him, if it wasn't for her.

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There we go, folks... please review.


	14. Chapter 14

One more chapter to go after this one... blimey, Year 11's got a lot of coursework in it! I'm glad you guys liked Tommy... while writing this story I really got quite attatched to him, as I do with most of my characters.

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Over London, the Prime Minister had apparently given up on the Doctor and gotten her act together. Because swarming over London was not just the army and the Queen's Guard and legions of foreign troops and what Rose thought were a few members of the Mafia skulking near the back but countless ordinary people armed with pitchforks and iron bars and bricks and... whatever was to hand, ready to wreak as much vengeance as was possible on the enemy. Earth's emergency defence plans were being put into place, and its citizens were prepared to fight to the death to survive. By now night was falling over London, and even through the semi-darkness, the armies continued to fight, now almost stumbling over each other in the darkness, but as fearsome and bloodthirsty as ever. 

The alien armies were nothing short of formidable. To put it bluntly, the ones that weren't six feet tall could fly – many of them boasted enormous black wings the size of three humans. The foot soldiers all held fireballs in clenched fists and blades and huge guns of every size and description. They had bombs strapped onto them and stun rays and acid capsules and bayonets and poison bullets and just about everything you would need to kill any living organism in the universe. Bringing up the rear were tanks – monsters with cannons sticking out from every angle that looked ready to fire.

The troops, both alien and human, were assembled wherever there was space to stand, for as far as the eye could see – where space on the streets had run out, people were standing on rooftops, on bridges, on open spaces, some even on the tops of cars. The ground below was so crowded with people that it could not be seen – London had literally been turned into a giant battle ground. And the biggest war the world had ever seen was being waged extremely ferociously.

It was brutal – the less well-equipped soldiers were dying in their tens and hundreds as bullets and bombshells from tanks slammed into them in deadly volleys. On the rooftops, men with sniper guns were destroyed by powerful flying aliens, who then picked them up with their feet and dropped them from fifty feet to smash into the ground below. The tanks rammed into the buildings like giant battering rams, smashing bricks and concrete to pieces, as if it were made of glass. But even as he watched, aeroplanes dive-bombed the tanks, sending smithereens flying in all directions, and more foot-soldiers launched a new attack, completely eliminating a front line of alien soldiers. The two sides were well-matched – they were both headed to completely destroy each other.

Into that complete mess sailed the Tardis, at a dangerously high speed.

It crash-landed on a small, debris-strewn rooftop and the Doctor ran out, closely followed by Rose who was holding their little boy.

_"See, I thought there was something I'd forgotten..."_

_"The intergalactic war, maybe?" _Rose rolled her eyes.

They gazed down at the chaos in increasing terror.

_"Rasillion..." _The Doctor proceeded to swear furiously in Gallifreyan.

_"Theta! Not in front of the baby!" _The swearing receded.

_"They can't carry on like this – they're killing themselves!"_

Rose suddenly pulled him out of the way as a large bright green arrow shot through the sky, narrowly missed his head.

_"So what are we going to do now?"_

He grabbed her and made her look at him suddenly, his eyes dark with seriousness, and she got the impression that what he was about to say meant a lot to him.

_"There's always been one thing we can do – the simplest thing we can do. I don't want two entire species to murder each other... we've got to try and stop the war."_

The Doctor pulled Rose behind the Tardis suddenely, as a hail of arrows hammered down through the sky around them. He looked at her in all seriousness.

_"Listen, this is dangerous – if the alien leaders find out we're here –"_

_"But you've got a plan, right?"_

_"Sort of..."_

_"Close enough. Theta, I'm coming with you."_

_"Rose! I've got a son now. I've got to take care of you."_

_"Oh yeah, like I couldn't take care of myself before?"_

_"Of course you could! You still can –"_

_"You are not facing countless bloodthirsty alien hordes on your own!" _Rose put her foot down. Like all the other times she had, and the times she would in the future, she was a fearsome thing to watch.

_"We... are... married. If I was afraid d'you really think I'd have let you put that ring on my finger? Tommy and I are coming with you. That is __."_

The Doctor couldn't have argued even if he'd wanted to. So, like all husbands do in the end, he gave in. Grudgingly. Then Rose stood on tiptoe and kissed him, which pretty much made up for it.

And suddenly, the pair were thrown under the glare of a blinding searchlight, in stark contrast to the now almost pitch-black sky. A voice sounded, ominous and as loud as thunder.

"THERE HE IS! IT'S HIM! IT'S THE DOCTOR!"

And everyone – absolutely everyone fighting over the fate of London – stopped what they were doing and stared. In a flash every alien weapon in sight was pointed in their direction.

The voice continued, "If any human being attacks my soldiers, the Doctor will die. Put down your weapons, all of you."

The spotlight grew even brighter – the feeling of exposure was almost unbearable, and they could hear a faint whirring noise getting louder and louder – apparently, the helicopter or whatever it was was moving closer. The human armies displayed extreme reluctance to de-weapon.

Beside him, the Doctor could tell Rose was on the verge of hysteria.

_"Rose... relax."_

_"Relax? RELAX? We're going to get stampeded by a horde of aliens with machine guns any second and you're telling me to relax?" _Definitely the Jackie streak showing through there.

_"Shh. It's alright – I'll improvise." _

Knowing the Doctor as well as she did, Rose knew he sounded a lot more confident than he felt. She also knew that no matter how afraid he was, he wouldn't let on if he could help it.

Theta reached up and touched Rose for the briefest of moments on the cheek before reaching for her hand – as her own hand was enveloped she noticed his was shaking slightly. She switched Tommy to her other arm before wrapping her fingers in his and holding on tight.

The silence was deafening – through the night, as still as death itself, his voice carried like a trumpet.

"Here I am – I'm giving myself up, look. I surrender. Coward, every time."

He raised both hands high above his head. This was it, quite possibly his last chance. And he did quite possibly the most Doctorish thing of all... he kept talking.

The voice from the helicopter interrupted him. "Good. Guards – seize him!"

Ninja-like aliens clad in black jumped down from the helicopter above and surrounded him, ready to pounce.

"Wait! Don't I get... erm... a last request? 'Cos of course, chances are I'm not coming back..."

Without waiting for anyone to approve this, he turned and looked down at the people spread out all over London below him. Amazingly, they were all looking at him, they were all paying full attention – he was easy enough to hear, and from the rooftop, he glowed like a beacon under the glare of the powerful searchlight. So, he resumed. And not having a clue as to what to say, he made it up as he went along.

"It's like I keep saying – the ordinary man, or woman, or... alien, is the most important thing in the universe. They have the power to change things as much as people who think they know better. Take your masters, the Daleks, for example. They thought they could take over this planet by controlling all of your lives and making you slaves."

"I know the Daleks well enough to know that they were not kind masters, were they? They did whatever they had to do, for themselves alone, not for you, the people who really matter."

It was brilliant – even in this darkness the streetlamps and various lights below revealed aliens standing there, and from the looks on their faces he knew what he was saying was hitting home. He had started a ball rolling – some of them, at least, were starting to take it in.

"That's right, think about it. You didn't deserve that, did you? You never did owe any loyalty to them. And now... now you never will. The Daleks have been destroyed."

He spoke very slowly and clearly as everyone below absorbed this unexpected news. "They... are... defeated. I killed them – they're gone, they're history. The only question that remains is – you lot. Would you destroy six billion human beings? They're powerful things, y'know. Oh sure, they might just be crawling now, but in a few millennia they'll be up there running with the best of them if you give them half a chance."

Gaining confidence fast, he paced the rooftop and registered among the whizzing ideas in his brain that the searchlight appeared to be following him. He began to talk faster as the emotion poured out – now although an icy cold breeze was blowing over his face, he was on fire as what he had known from the moment he was caught on the rooftop demanded to be heard. There was no point in killing. The Daleks were no more... well, that changed everything. Fight an interplanetary war over one species... stop the war, at all costs, to save several. He felt a burning desire just to tell the truth - sheer morality demanded it. If they shot him now, so be it.

"You owe it to me. I killed the Daleks – I'm powerful enough to control every species out there. Remember the old regime, anyone? The Time Lords, sorting out the universe's problems? Yeah, well, they're all gone now too, surprise surprise. The Daleks killed them too. I... was... the last of the Time Lords. And I'm telling you... I'm begging you, leave Earth alone. It's not worth it, losing your entire army over a war that you don't need. Go home, live in peace, because until you've lost everything you don't know how valuable that is."

Still, to his amazement, no one was stopping him... the Doctor raised his voice as he prepared to finish and leave the fate of Earth – and the universe – hanging in the balance.

"Go on. Look at them! Look at the human race right in front of you, look me in the eye and tell me you can kill them!"

Guns were cocked right at him as he stood there, arms outstretched and faced the spaceship about to shoot him to pieces, over looking a city full of aliens who were surely about to murder him and sell the human race into slavery. And it seemed right then as if anyone from any race or age could understand the gesture... the overwhelming importance of one man's stand against the full force of a mighty empire.

Silence. Again. For what seemed like forever. And so many people were still looking at him, hard, that the Doctor couldn't think straight. Through his haze, however, he could see their minds working, and he was glad. Very glad, because in truth, he couldn't be sure what would happen. It was pretty risky, relying on alien compassion and understanding... because there wasn't a great deal of it out there. Compassion, even love... the almighty force capable of rocking civilisations if used in the right way... was something the Daleks could never understand – it was the reason why their own soldiers hated them. It was most probably, in truth, the only thing that could have changed anything.

Suddenly, a clattering sound that echoed again and again through the city. The Doctor turned, startled. It was one of the black ninja aliens, on the same rooftop. He was standing there, looking at the Doctor like the Doctor had never seen anyone look at him before, a look that was truly touching. And his harpoon lay dropped at his feet. The ninja inclined his head briefly, then turned without warning and began walking away, across the rooftop.

Suddenly, another clatter was heard, then another and another, until the sound turned into one almighty ripple, like a rainstorm over the city. All over the place, from rooftops and buildings and the tops of cars to bridges, green open spaces and narrow street corners, the invading army that had been about to crush them had decided to leave the human race in peace... no-one knew for sure why. Maybe they had realised that there was no need to kill them... maybe they had decided to give the human race a second chance. Maybe, it had something to do with the Doctor, the man standing on the rooftop in an aura of light, with his time ship, wife and son. The man with up-stretched arms, hair in a typical mess and eyes that were shining spectacularly because he realised just what he had managed to do.

It didn't matter that over the racket of falling weapons, no-one could hear him – no-one was listening to him or even watching him now. He walked back across the rooftop and grinned at Rose, who was staring at him in complete amazement.

_"How the hell did you do that?"_

He grabbed her and kissed her in typical, infectious excitement. _"I improvised."_

As they looked around them over the city, the searchlight was switched off as the helicopter flew slowly away form them, and they noticed just how cold it was – the Doctor shivered slightly, as did Tommy. Deciding to get well out of the way while they still could, Rose dragged Theta back towards the Tardis, ignoring his protests that there was too much to see out there.

_"You're freezing! Come on – bed. I'll make you a hot chocolate..."_

And that was that.

* * *

I originally had an entire sub-plot written out for how he was going to end the interplanetary war once and for all, but then I thought... since this is the last massive disaster I'm ever going to make the doctor in this series (affectionately "my doctor") sort out, I realised that there was a better way to do it. Was I right? You decide... please review. :D 


	15. Chapter 15

Now, here it is - the very last and final chapter, the one I've been waiting until I have enough time to post in the A/N exactly what I mean to say. Well, my long-extended saga has played itself out, and I wish to thank from the bottom of my heart the following people who make my characterslive and breathe: WhisperLuna, saiyamar, daffodilTARDIS, clairlune, reddwarfaddict, montypython203, RagamuffinSundrop, one of the riddles, Light bulb in a cookie jar, blackhairdye, biggreenflyingbox, HunterGiomanach, cremela, ScoutGirl, agapi16, gaiafreedom21, totally.doctor.who and Wish Wielder. On we go...

* * *

Very early the next morning, the Tardis crash-landed somewhat abruptly in Jackie Tyler's living room, making a jerky appearance, skidding on the carpet and nearly falling over before re-balancing. Jackie and Harold, who were both thankfully alive and well, had stayed in London to view events unfold until after midnight before returning to the flat and collapsing, exhausted, on the sofa. Before either of them had known it, they'd dozed off. 

At the sound of the Tardis Jackie jumped to her feet and Harold promptly fell off the sofa – he was sitting up on the floor rubbing his head when the Tardis gradually stabilized and solidified so they could see it clearly.

Out ran Rose, wearing a pair of pyjamas and a pink dressing gown and running her fingers through her hair distractedly. A column of black smoke billowed out of the Tardis with her, getting thicker and thicker as she anxiously checked over little Tommy in her arms, wondering whether he had asphyxiation.

"Rose! What's that?" cried Jackie.

"Bloody idiot of a husband left toast in the oven for forty-eight minutes!" muttered Rose through gritted teeth, referring to the smoke.

"No, that!" Jackie pointed at Tommy, completely hidden amidst the large blanket surrounding him.

The Doctor chose that moment to clamber out of the Tardis himself, coughing, with his face and clothes blackened with soot and his hair standing up wildly. Wearing only a pair of thin flannel trousers he was attempting to pull on a shirt without much success.

"I do tell her over and over again, Rose, don't fly the Tardis!" he chastised, still wrestling with the shirt.

"Every time... she always crashes it... lands it in completely the wrong place... several hours early."

"Well, I wouldn't've had to do it if you hadn't set the entire kitchen on fire!" So saying, Rose glared furiously at him, at which point he put both hands up and backed away in sheer terror.

"It wasn't my fault! How was I to know that would happen?" He said it partly to Rose and partly to Jackie as a partial explanation for why her living room was covered in smoke.

Rose sighed in exasperation. _"Theta, I told you, remember, just because you forget about toast doesn't mean the oven does!"_

But the forlorn expression on his face left her, as usual, smiling hopelessly – she went over to him and smoothed his hair almost absent-mindedly, brushing soot and ash off his face with the back of her thumb.

She turned to Jackie, who was staring unreservedly at the sight of the Doctor virtually topless (the buttons on his shirt were still half undone), and Harold, who was finally standing up and looking slightly sleep-befuddled, still rubbing the back of his head.

"Mum! You're alright! Sorry about the smoke..."

Jackie pointed to Tommy, white faced. "Rose... is that... what I think it is?"

Rose smiled proudly. "It's him – our son. Thomas Apollo Tyler... or Tommy."

High-pitched wails did not, to everyone's amazement, render the air in two. No, Jackie remained completely silent, still retaining the power to surprise them all.

She walked over, hardly daring to breathe.

"That's him? That's... my grandson?"

Rose handed Jackie the bundle, and she looked down at the little boy, still sleeping.

"Rose... he's beautiful!"

The Doctor grinned egocentrically and preened himself, irritating Rose to the utmost.

Jackie pressed a kiss to the top of her grandson's head and passed him back, wiping a tear from her eye that did not go unnoticed by anyone in the room. Giving Tommy to the Doctor, Rose ran over and hugged her.

"Well, I'll just go and make all of us a nice cup of tea, shall I? Harold, put the telly on."

Harold smiled at them both. "Glad you two're alright, I am. Doctor, las' night, you... you were fantastic! And your little 'un looks 'andsome."

He switched the TV on, and what appeared to be an ongoing newsflash hit the screen. Being displayed was a patchy mobile phone recording of a blurred image on a rooftop talking frantically. Perched on the edge of Jackie's sofa, Theta took out his spectacles and stared at the television.

"Go on. Look at them! Look at the human race right in front of you, look me in the eye and tell me you can kill them!" re-iterated the pixellated, unrecognisable image on the screen.

_"You're on TV!" _Rose watched the screen with interest.

A voiceover cut over everything that followed. "This is the only known recording with audio and video of this unforseen action of defiance against an alien threat. Although his image is not shown here, this man is reputed to be the Doctor, now ultimate saviour of mankind in his darkest hour..."

As the commentary continued, Theta ran his head though his hair, looking troubled. In his arms Tommy woke up and gurgled as the Doctor stroked his son's head, deep in thought.

Jackie came back in then carrying several mugs of steaming tea. Giving Tommy to Rose absently as he started wailing, the Doctor took his and sipped pensively, his mind still whirring.

_"Rose... have you got the Prime Minister's number on your phone?"_

She got out her mobile and checked. _"Yeah, why?"_

The Doctor set down his mug and stood up. _"I've got to ask her __a favour... come__ with me."_

"Jackie, just gotta go... er, re-park the Tardis..." he muttered.

Without waiting for her to respond, he opened the Tardis and went inside, leaving Rose to smile apologetically at Jackie and shut the door behind her.

Once inside, he began pulling dials and levers in total silence... by now, Rose was familiar with this typical awkwardness, and watched him as she rocked Tommy slowly, waiting for the outburst.

_"I like a quiet life! I'm not having a load of stupid humans chasing me everywhere..."_

The Tardis landed then and they both got out on Jackie's estate which was unusually deserted – almost everyone was in the centre of the city.

The Doctor leaned against the Tardis and explained his idea.

_"The thing is... I'd been thinking about it all along, really... as soon as the human race could get by on its own I wasn't going to stay any longer. And I don't want to be remembered forever for this. So I'm going to try and put Harriet Jones in charge... call her, will you?"_

Rose selected a number from the speed dial and listened as the Prime Minister picked up the phone almost immediately.

"Prime Minister... it's me, Rose."

Hearing the Prime Minister babbling away excitedly on the other end of the line about the events of the night before, she interrupted her quickly before she could carry on, a grin on her face.

"Wait until the Doctor's on the line and you can tell him yourself... trust me, I won't hear the end of it. Yeah, we're both fine. It's a very long story... but everyone's alright now. And... I had the baby..."

Shrieks echoed on the other end of the line piercingly enough to make them both wince.

"It's a little boy. We've called him Thomas Tyler... he's more than handsome, he's beautiful. Looks just like the Doctor..."

Upon hearing this, the Doctor beamed egocentrically and preened himself as Rose glared half-heartedly at him.

_"Glare all you like, but you did say I was handsome..." _Really, thought Rose, he was insufferable.

"The Doctor says he needs to talk to you... I'll pass him over..."

The Doctor took the phone and jumped straight into rapid speech. "Prime Minister? Listen – I know I'm the one responsible, but whatever you're going to tell the press about the aliens and I, forget it. I don't want all the responsibility on me, so I want you to have it. Go on TV, talk to the newspapers, make sure you tell them that _you_ did all this. Heaven knows you need the kudos..."

Another outburst on the other end of the line prompted the Doctor to hold the phone away from his ear, still listening wearily, until the volume lowered slightly.

"I've told you already, I know I did it! But I just need to get out. I'm not a world leader and I never will be. I'm a man in a little blue box! I don't want anyone following me. You can do it, you know you can... once you get back to the office, get your government on it – remove all references to me from the Internet, historical record, anything you can find, as unobtrusively as possible. Do what you need to do to make sure people forget. Please?"

Upon hearing her grudging response the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. "I knew you'd understand... to be honest, I'd rather you than any of the other stuffed-up pedestals out there. Good luck." he ended rather gruffly and handed the phone back as the Prime Minister hung up.

They stood there together for a moment watching an early sun just beginning to rise, streaked with pink and yellow, above the blocks of flats on the estate. Though the sky was still dark enough to see the stars, grey smoke still billowed softly high in the air above the city from the spaceship that was still in the process of leaving as particularities and peace treaties were worked out and the last aliens who rebelled against the decision to leave Earth in peace were either tranquilized and put in the spaceship or killed. It was cruel... it was life. And the Doctor knew better than most... there could be no second chances.

Rose's phone bleeped then and she checked it curiously.

_"Mum says to come back for breakfast... she's making French toast..."_

Theta groaned. _"Oh... alright, then.__ But after that we're getting out. Haven't ridden a supernova yet, have you?"_

At her shake of the head he smiled. _"Always a first time... you wait and see, riding energy waves from a four billion year-old exploding giant star... you're gonna love it."_

Rose smiled, as she always did when he did something undeniably Doctorish. Looking at her, Theta realised he would never figure out why that always affected him so much – brown eyes that smiled with delight up into his, the characteristic tongue that poked from between her teeth, the cheekiness and resilience that was so very _Rose_ that made a curious warmth spread through him and his hearts skip several beats.

So he laid his forehead on hers and kissed her very tenderly as they just stood there in front of their Tardis hand in hand with Tommy curled up in Rose's arms.

And the gentle reader will allow me to prove a point, one final time.

**That**... is what love is.

FINIS

* * *

There we are. The end that has been, at times, inconceivable for me. It feels so strange to be at the end... I can't guarantee I'll write any more as university applications are looming, etc. etc. Words always seem to fail me at times like this... I guess what I'm trying to say is... thank you. Very much. 


End file.
